Phase Three: Battle of the Rim
This is the battle at the edge of The Pit. It will begin with the routing of the armies and pushing them back to The Pit and end with the fall of Elpidian.

1. Behind the Scenes - Enemy reacts to the bad news (7 tokens, 1 per)
   1. Billy - Harkan kills the bearer of bad news.

Breginthresh 9 / Keremius 36, 1003:

...His frame stood over 20' in height, but he hunched his shoulders.

The others in his unit all feared him. In battle, nothing could break his fuligin-hide, and no one hit harder. He had the head of a giant and the fangs of a dragon hanging off his Pit-monster steed to prove how strong he was. These were trophies won with ease. Har'cuttaran had been a great soldier for the King.

His grandfather was a slave. Taken from his home in the mountains of Mati by Krev slavers, his grandfather, Miucut, had been a shepherd and alderman. When the slavers came, he had been searching for a lost member of his herd who had strayed too far from the gentle slopes. He had fallen, been knocked unconscious, and awoken chained together with a dozen others of his kind. He had been dragged by massive ogres and minotaurs with whips that could bite through even the old maggadh's hide. He had been taken to a ship, sailed around the world, and finally, sold to the fuligin-skinned iguanaman who represented Harkanian interests in Krevzuk. He had then been taken to the Kingdom, and there, he had been infused with fuligin-serum.

He was not expected to survive the process. He did, and so they thought him strong enough to breed with another who had survived the process. Another maggadh, an old breeding slave whose name no one remembered. She died giving birth to Har'cuttaran's father, the first generation of Har'maggadhs, of fuligin-infused maggadhs. Har'cuttaran's mother and father were also nameless; those kept for breeding were never considered much more than recepticles. If they had been warriors, they would have earned a name, like Har'cuttaran had. Har'cuttaran only knew what his grandfather's name was because the old bastard still lived to tell him. The shepherd was tough, and cunning, and he still dreamed of freedom.

Har'cuttaran was free. He was the King's warrior. He had the head of a giant, taken with a clean stroke of his axe, and the fangs of a dragon, looted from the beast's corpse after Har'cuttaran had beaten its skull in. And now, he was a messenger to the King, bearing news of the fall at the Worm-Scar. It was an honor.

He walked into the King's tent and bowed. His hunched shoulders nearly touched the ground as he waited to be addressed by the King's councillors. After a moment, he was told to rise, and he did, looking the generals in the eye before looking down humbly, away from the King's countenance. He silently held up the scroll given to him by Duke B'hullcharn. To Har'cuttaran's surprise, the King himself stood to take the scroll.

Harkan the Black. His body was broad and muscular, bulging even where no human muscles should have existed. He rippled, as if something under his blacker than black skin was trying to escape. His face was lined with a thick, neatly trimmed beard of the same hue, and his eyes were as deep and dark as The Pit. When he stood, he was only 12' tall, but he seemed much larger, even to someone as big as Har'cuttaran. He seemed to have a density.

He reached out, took the scroll roughly, and read silently. A moment later, still without speaking, he crushed the scroll to dust in a single hand, then lashed out. Har'cuttaran's head remained low the entire time, did not register the approach of the fist. His head, a massive, armored skull, crumpled like the scroll. Everything went dark, and Miucut's grandson died, a proud warrior of the King...

...The cheering had died down.

Ghef'fhardim sipped water from a small cup as Maradir read the new reports: Victories. Unequivocal victories.

Every front was advancing steadily, destroying fortifications and enemy encampments, routing both Grey and Fuligin forces. It was a gratifying shift, and Ghef'fhardim made a note to thank the judges later for their advice. For now, he turned to his advisers, "I assume you are going to caution me."

The old fey shook his head, "On the contrary, now is the time for boldness."

Ghef'fhardim smiled, "Morale has never been higher. We've got momentum. And there's reason to believe the enemy is afraid for once. A strong push now could get us to The Pit in less than a week."

Maradir nodded, "I will prepare the orders..."

1. 1. Nathan - Gustav knows exactly what to do with this. Unleash the knights of Kael'Ras. "It is too early," Elpidian resists. "No. It is precisely the right time," Gustav insists.
   2. Kei - Wei is terrified and attempts to flee.
   3. Ian - Bramiel raises someone precious to the good guys.
   4. JT - The Nameless Vizier erases a key prisoner from existence, turning it into another nullman.
   5. Benjesus - The enemy calls in on a divine favor.
   6. Dani - A prophecy trap is set using the corrupted waters from an undead sandworm's raising rituals.
2. Advance to the Rim - the Alliance advances across the Fuligin Field, over the course of a week (14 vignettes, 2 per). Includes villains, NPCs, and PCs.
   1. Dani - A colossal spectral undead passively blocks the path.
   2. Benjesus - A major NPC uses newly restored faith to defeat undead and Pit-monsters in equal measure.
   3. JT - A minor villain defeats a major nation's best unit through guerrilla tactics.
   4. Dani - The enemy starts to fight dirty with psychological torture upon the advancing Alliance.
   5. Benjesus - An alliance faction gets cut off from the main forces and nearly dies of thirst/starvation lost in the desert. A chance (miracle or something?) change of route leads them back.
   6. Kei - Shara decimates an entire battalion - by the literal term of the word - using the Mastered Heart's ability to burn the unashamed.
   7. Ian - Prax enters a poioumenonic war-trance, and is many places at once. For much of the week, he becomes the war, and the Hunt is his heart. Prax and Sli share a moment out of time.
   8. Nathan - Tam Lin and Gerrick take charge of a stranded encampment of inexperienced NPC's, keeping every one of them alive through a hard, horrific night of siege. Tam Lin hardens a little in the process, and understands what it must be like to be a Troublemaker.
   9. JT - A battle is fought in a field with no faith, no magic, and no gifts.
   10. Benjesus - Quicksand, blessed by undeath, claims many lives. Those who die within lie just beneath the surface, ready to drag others under.
   11. Billy - A corrupted Gift is recovered by the alliance.

...Earta had been a rich, powerful man once upon a time, an owner of property and men, a powerful force in his native forests of Shar. His avarice had driven him, certainly, but most of his pleasure came from the feeling of control. Among the deer folk of Shar, he was considered a dangerous but respectable man, a symbol of what one could achieve. He had 30 points on his massive antlers, which he believed derived not from age but dominance.

And so it was that he sought greater and greater forms of power. He should have known, of course, that the old crone was not what she seemed, but he wanted mystic abilities to add to his list of forms of control. So it was that, of course, he was bitten, transformed, into a vampire. For a year or so, he shunned his new "life," but soon enough, he realized it was exactly what he had been wanting. He sought out information, lore, on how to make this form work for him. He grew in strength, until he was a kukudhi, a vampire-lord, and he warped the town around himself into a realm of undeath and corruption. For a hundred years, Lord Earta Alkan was on the rise.

And then came the "heroes," the "liberators," and the "undead slayers." He enslaved most of them, but it became clear that his position was untenable in its form. He began to seek new ways to protect his realm, and that's where the Un-Falcon had come in. The Jewel had been exquisite, a bright grey hue, clearly of dark properties, and it only cost Earta a thousand slaves.

And then he had put it on.

The Jewel had not, of course, been the fabled Jewel of Nine Lies, but a new Gift from a new God, fittingly the same that patroned Earta's new form. The Jewel of Lassitude. It instantly sapped Earta of energy, leaving him a bare husk, open to assault and defeat. His small fiefdom crumbled around him as he remained in his locked chamber, and soon, a decade or so later, he was forgotten. His form remained locked away, dust, until the servants of the Dealmaker returned. Carefully gathered, the remains of Earta and his Jewel were taken off again, sold to a new contractee.

The fuligin-infused slave trader long had wanted a vampire-slave, and this made the perfect chance.

Five hundred years later, Earta rode atop a Pit-monster of incredible stature, serving in Harkan's army as liaison between fuligin and grey. Upon his breast hung the Jewel of Lassitude, corrupted into fuligin blasphemy, turned inward on itself and reformed into a vessel of faith-destroying might. Lord Earta rode at the head of a new legion, a foul host that combined the powers of both armies, and his ambitions were to rise even higher still.

Again, this was his undoing. Seeing the danger in his position, Elpidian tasked him with facing the full force of Dhun's mightiest knights. Before the fall of the Worms, of course, this meant heavy losses for Dhun, but it was only a matter of time before they found some way, Elpidian knew, to take down this upstart vampire. The crushing sweep of the Paladins of the Swanmother over the Grey Host had to be stopped, after all, and who better than grey infused with fuligin?

Elpidian watched from afar, carefully observing the manner in which the knights kept their formations around the allied Worm, letting its aura of Law empower their faith. He observed Earta's admittedly cunning tactics, drawing them away from the Worm, butchering them, turning them into new servants. He observed the fuligin ballista bolts he employed seeking to take out the Worm (the Dhunic forces anticipated this effectively, shielding the Worm with mystic arts). He observed the knight known as Sir Aberforth scream in agony as the poisoned javelin of a skeletal warrior pierced his side, and then observed his suicidal charge at Earta. He saw as the man's sacrifice gave his faith an impossible boost, allowing him to emolate the fuligin-infused kukudhi.

Elpidian sent a silent command to his own agents, seeking to let the trap close properly.

And then they did it. The Dhunic knight Sir Cameron recovered the Jewel and instantly fell to its power. Then Sir Eldric, then Sir Yancey. Seven knights fell before someone finally figured out how to capture the Jewel safely. Enough. Seven out of thirty-five Paladins weakened to the point of uselessness...

1. 1. Nathan - Mudpie is termporarily an avatar of Shem. He becomes a normal desert storm, warping the fuligin to normal desert where he passes, and making ash of the undead in a swath the size of a nor'easter. When he returns to normal, he will still have remnants of Shem in his head, altering his mind. He will also be, temporarily or for an indeffinite moderate time, short of energy.
   2. Kei - Deyn communes with the earthpower aether and summons a small tectonic disruption.
   3. Ian - The May Queen uses her cup, long held by Prax and now energized with narrative energy, to purge all fear from someone thought shattered by the war.
2. Behind the Scenes - Alliance commanders (7 tokens, 1 per)
   1. Billy - Thannas spends the day among the common soldiers, performing miracles of healing, and weeps at night at the pain and suffering he is still unable to defeat, as the weight of messianity causes him to hear the prayers of everyone within miles calling for help. He reaches out, even in his dreams, to help them, but it's never enough.

Fysirym 2 / Breginthresh 16, 1003:

...His touch cleansed the wound instantly.

Thannas Asharai, Thannas Faebrenner, the Silver Fisher King, Messiah of Silver, burned away the fuligin-taint in the dying pachydermian's wound. He would not survive, but his soul would be unburdened. He was not even awake to feel it. Around him, medics attended fixable cases.

Thannas paused, considering the power he bore. He could command a miracle to happen, but rarely could he command the shape of the miracle. When he would heal the elven sickness among the Ailaneans, it would sometimes purge the curse entirely, and other times merely delay it. He could not, no matter how he tried, force the entire curse to leave the entire race. Theoretically, his power was greater than the Divine, but something within him held him back, and he knew not what. Theoretically, he had the power to cleanse the world of The Pit, but every time he directed a miracle in that direction, something else happened. A burst of light to save some forces, an angelic host appearing, a mass resurrection. He could not control it.

He prayed, every hour, to the Silver Mother for guidance. Sometimes, when she answered directly, he heard the tears of pain in her voice.

He paused to invoke a miracle upon a woman whose face was cleaved in twain. It reformed, restored her to her natural form, and to life. She stood, bowed with tears in her eyes, and began to beg of him to show her the way. Inwardly, Thannas panicked. He had no guidance for these strangers. She was not even elven, and if she were, he would not dare to lead her. He was merely a man; she was a mother and sister and aunt and caretaker, a matron, a woman. She was his better in all ways, and she knelt before him asking for guidiance. He sought words, managed to urge her to help with the wounded.

He turned to a weeping soldier standing over a dying one. He touched the weeper, and for a moment, gave him peace. His brother, dying there, shared a moment of warmth and unity with his living relative, and the two knew they would meet again in the next life. The weeper looked to Thannas for more help as the man in his arms died, and Thannas turned away, saying only, "Go and heal."

A knight of Dhun whose body was drained by a Gift restored; a sorcerer of the vala'bran whose magic was lost to an unknown void attack; an ogrish mercenary without a left arm--who never had a left arm, according to his own memories--finding she suddenly has one; a centaur with two broken legs regaining them; a coward redeemed; a faithless man finding the Divine; a faithful woman finding strength without the Divine; a hundred hopeless cases restored to health; a thousand men, women, and even children given reason to fight. Elysian light never left Thannas's fingertips that day.

By the time the sun was setting, Thannas still had hundreds more to see to. He did not rest, some thought, but this was not entirely true. He did not want to rest; he knew what sleep would bring.

By dawn, he had addressed the needs of four thousand in a single 24-hour span. He had seen babies born, angels carrying bodies, and nightmares fade. He had seen the undead restored to life, the fuligin restored to faith. He had seen void undone and magic flourishing, and vice versa. He had seen peace come to warriors and strength come to healers. He had seen survival.

"You need to rest," Lamaera told him. Concerned laced her voice, but truly, she felt awe.

Thannas looked to her, and in his eyes, she saw fear. "How many days have I been awake?"

"Ten," she said. "Mystic arts can only do so much. You must sleep."

He sighed, "I will try."

He let her guide him to the small tent he called his own. He did not remember setting it up; he asssumed someone else had done it. He walked in, then simply lie on the blanket prepared for him. He closed his eyes, and the voices hit him before he could clench tight his body, before he could prepare.

"Let me be strong for my father..." "...may mother be safe..." "...just let me survive..." "...give my blade a keen edge..." "...if you can hear this..." "...let her wait for me..." "...let him die cleanly..." "...please..." "...kill me..." "...save me..." "...give me strength..." "...my children safe..." "...my father safe..." "...my mother alive..." "...my sight returned..." "...my arm returned..." "...why am I here?" "...where am I?" "...who am I?" "...how did I get here?" "...bless them all..." "...let it be fuligin and not grey..." "...let it be grey and not fuligin..." "...let it be swift..." "...let her hold out just a little longer..." "...a guiding light..." "...any light at all..." "...tell me the truth..." "...let her rot in Hells..." "...show me how to kill it..." "...why is it so strong?" "...I want to go home..." "...I wish I were never born..." "...I can never be myself again..." "...let me run again..." "...let me see the sea once more..." "...never seen the sands again..." "...the worms are so beautiful..." "...I need to ride..." "...I am useless here..." "...if he would just look at me..." "...if he had never been born..." "...if I could lift this rock..." "...air is running out..." "...sun is so hot..." "...he just stands above, saying nothing..." "...eight arms all bringing power..." "...riding in red..." " ...my magic could be of some use..." "...don't let this be the flux..." "..." "...don't let me embarrass..." "...take back one mistake..." "...send food and water..." "...armor me against..." "...swiftness and keenness of eye..." "...her good graces..." "...his favor..." "...it's too tight..." "...lose it..." "...lost it..." "...if I ever had it..." "...good fortune..." "...make my fortune..." "...if she is pregnant..." "...if he is the father..." "...if I survive..." "...just let me survive..." "..."

1. 1. Dani - Pajah Harami must give up the search for a lost wounded red cloak.
   2. Kei - Sorosiphia notes a tendency for one wing of the enemy forces to fade back the exact same distance and regroup after a certain strategy is used and decides to make use of it in a sudden ambush on their next regroup site.
   3. Ian - Prax mourns with a stoic commander.
   4. JT - Diplomatic tensions flair as the Tara'hinian cannot find Ledyim, and think him dead.
   5. Benjesus - The Irriton Complex presents the alliance commanders with a weapon and then leaves.
   6. Nathan - the lesser queen and her allies try and fail to freeze Angela Murray out of her command. Before she leaves, she gives them one crucial piece of intel leading to a necessary victory.
   7. Billy  - Ghef'fhardim and Maradir.
2. Clash at the Rim - vignettes of wins and losses all around the Rim of The Pit (14 tokens, 2 per)
   1. JT - A major NPC saves a legendary NPC from a gashadokuro.
   2. Benjesus - We see what a man is made of when he is literally pushed to the edge.
   3. Kei - A fault line is used to cause a collapse of The Pit edge and to win a battle.
   4. Nathan - Gerrick and Tam Lin get stranded, rescued by the inexperienced NPC team they protected.
   5. Dani - A minor nation's units are completely wiped out.
   6. Ian - Bramiel's newly-undead scion makes their debut with an early victory.
   7. Billy - Endhathef loses control and goes on a rampage.

...Endhathef pulled his hood low.

The biting fuliign sand never ceased, even here at the edge. It somehow seemed worse here, in fact.He glanced at the maw of The Pit. It was different from what he expected. It was bigger, so big that its form was not entirely apparent. It did not seem like a pit, but a huge canyon, one so big the other side was unseen. Its bottom was invisible in a huge shadow so far down that looking did not inspire vertigo or acrophobia, for it could not be fathomed as a depth. It seemed flat.

He turned to his companion. The Windkeep Consequent was a hardy mercenary, and she knew the landscape of war well. She was Endhathef's guide, and he was her calm sounding board. She nodded out toward the enemy.

Their position along the rim was gained by punching through a small faction of Harkanian troops and holding, trying to find a route westward just over the edge. They knew paths existed along the cliffside, if they could just find them. It would allow them to control some of the enemy's routes better. The downside of this was that their unit was cut off, but they knew that when they signed up for it. It was not an easy mission.

'Anamel asked, "Want to pick a nasty one for this fight?"

It had been Jheshemirath's idea to support each other. Sorosophia, Vessera, and Aleel'aqallah had all turned him down, and Daenil had hesitated to speak at all about what he bore in his mind. Kili'anamakaauhe was near to an animal in mindset now, and Endhathef was unsure if Rindacsa had been yet approached. But the others regularly spoke with one another about the weight of Consequence and the best ways to target the history within themselves. Different tactics were emerging.

The most common was, of course, to pull skill, memory, and power from many targets at once, so as to give none enough strength or focus to take over one's body. Powerful figures from the past were either to be avoided or treated with lightly. Others were to be sealed away by more pleasant figures. But there were times when giving oneself over was not entirely out of the question, and in war against horrors, sometimes, it was almost necessary. 'Anamel liked to let legendary warriors take over her, but she had a nation to draw from without a history of vile evil. There were some villains, certainly, but none were like the Vewelians in terms of proportion or extremity.

"I will not," Endhathef said. "Though I must admit, the rigors of these fights would come easier with some of my brethren under control. I fear they would not relinquish that control, however."

'Anamel nodded, "Well, get ready soon. They're almost here." She turned to their elite crew of former elves and shouted, "Pull up your pants and unsheath your blades in that order, girls! It's time to get bloody."

The troops drew their weapons and moved into position. Endhathef let his mind flicker through the many Vewelian warriors he kept under the surface to draw from, and as he did, something pulled him back deeper. A weaver of jet crystals, a mystic of ancient power, had come toward the surface. It must have been 'Anamel's comment about someone nasty that did it, along with the fatigue. She found it almost too easy to slip through. To take control.

The troops beside him had no chance to react, to face the enemy. Endhathef cackled in mad delight as Vestrikan took control of his body, drawing void from a thousand thousand years of power. Energy dark and negative roiled from his every inch of skin, and it made even the fuligin around him simmer and dissolve into nothing. He strode forward.

Harkanheim's troops marched inexorably toward, no trepidation in their steps, and Endhathef matched them for pace and resolve. The troops behind the Consequent watched in horror as jet black energy shot out in long loops, making Pit-monstes and fuligin-infused soldiers cease to be. Midnight met midnight, and the ancient power ripped the new one to shreds as long withheld desires to nullify and obliterate were sated. The ancient crone's might drew from millions of ancient, now dead elves, and their cessating power answered her skill. Bolts of void ate through blasphemy as easily as it would faith at these levels. The entire platoon vanished from existence within moments, and Endhathef, still under Vestrikan's power, made the air before him sizzle with his power.

He walked. Slowly, steadily, through fuligin sand, onward, westward, toward more of the enemy...

1. 1. Kei - Avery finds himself pinned between the Pit and an enemy armed with iron. Jack the Diamond manages to reach him but is grievously wounded in their escape.
   2. Ian - Prax flashes back to his early medical training, and wonders if Shem could survive having The Pit amputated.
   3. JT - Ledyim Lilac uses Rindacsa's candle to lead his men out of a trap of undeath despair.
   4. Dani - Undead or fuligin-infused gnomes.
   5. Dani - Roving packs of wild fuligin predators
   6. Billy - Bluebird Hrielle kills a minor NPC and raises him/her to taunt a major NPC.

...Zarren was dead.

The Erlking sighed. The nimerigar archer was one of the few who had ridden the whole way through Vesturia with them. He was one of the ones who had ridden with them to face the dark powers and Hellish landscapes, and his bow had proven useful more times than the Erlking could count. And here he lay, a bone spear through his heart. Faeries were unkillable save by iron or mystic art, and this bone weapon counted as the latter.

The Erlking sighed, then drew the bone spear out. He spoke an ancient charm and watched it burn to dust in his hands, then turned to the four Hunters with him.

"Wrap him in what we can find and send him back to the supply lines. He deserves better than being buried out here."

Realta nodded and gathered the little archer up, while the Erlking considered his position. He had a mile between himself and The Pit, and that mile was crawling with undead. His forces were ill-suited to facing the Grey Host, but they had a few tricks. But the undead did not stop coming, and the Hunters were finding it harder and harder to stand against them. The end was in sight, though, and that gave them some hope. The Erlking sighed, and wished not for the first time that Tam Lin had stuck with him for this leg of the war.

His reverie ceased as a scream reached him. He turned and urged his mount back toward the trouble, and there, he found Realta fighting for her life against a translucent figure with Zarren's appearance. Screaming for magical assistance, the Erlking summoned an ancient charm to ward off souls and sent it at the little archer's ghost. The impact should have been like a feather against a cloud, but some greater force resided within that grey form. It was like a thunderclap, and it sent Realta, the Erlking, and two other Hunters rolling in fuligin dust as their mounts bolted in pain.

The Erlking looked up from his prone position to see Zarren's ghost flicker across the fuligin sand toward a blue-robed figure some distance away. He pulled himself to his feet and began to run, whistling for his mount as he rushed after the phantasm. Each time he came nearer, he found the ground uneven. Each time he looked back, his mount remained the same distance, never quite gaining. Each time he sought to use one of his charms against the undead figure, some power misdirected him. Within moments, he should have been upon the blue-robed figure, but he never quite made it.

After a few minutes, he realized he was separating himself from his forces, and more importantly, his back up. Stopping to catch his breath, he decided to let the undead go...

1. 1. Nathan - Mudpie feels the pull of The Pit, and uses the connection to transmit vital knowledge.
   2. Benjesus - Tom Fool steals Dullahan's voice.
2. JT - Rindacsa faces the Nullman
3. The Fuligin Twelve ride forth with Khanga, routing a portion of the Alliance front (7 tokens, 1 per)
   1. Benjesus - A "flu" sweeps across the alliance.
   2. Kei - The breaking of the lines causes the med tents to overflow, and named NPC healers struggle to keep up with the influx.
   3. Dani - Khanga feasts on the fear and blood of fallen faithful.
   4. Billy - Edela finds herself caught in a masterful doublecross by a previously undiscovered double-agent mole that severly hinders Allied intelligence.

...The Queen watched as her forces fell back.

She turned slightly on her steed and looked to Edela, her longest and most trusted adviser. "You do not make mistakes."

It was not a question, not a reprimand, not a command. Merely a statement of fact. This defeat was not at the hands of bad intelligence. Someone had betrayed them, and the implication was that their entire network might have been compromised.

Edela turned and rode back, moving swiftly behind the lines. Finding a small crest in the rocky landscape, she paused and surveyed the field. Along the rim, the enemy had countless fortification and camps, and each one was being supplied by lines moving along the inner lip of The Pit. The curse that afflicted the region did not apply to fuligin dragons and Harkanian ships (nor, it seemed, spectral undead, though their utility was more insubstantial), meaning they could resupply anywhere along the northern shoreline and fly it or carry it around the rim. Intel had suggested that the enemy had far fewer reserves along this front, hence Ghef'fhardim's choice to leave it undermanned while the supply lines caught up in the next sector over. Instead, a full twenty-thousand more soldiers appeared to be moving out from the two fortifications here than previously suspected, and the monster Khanga was here as well, when all reports suggested she would be to the southeast by nearly a twenty miles.

There were two agents who might be in a position to mislead the Intel Council this badly. One was working for the Tara'hinian Intelligence Corps, the other was under Edela's command. Edela would let Haniqa address the Tara'hinian agent; she was going to ride down to find Mollin.

The command tent was a few miles away, surrounded by a mixed legion of elites and trainees. Edela bypassed them all, riding undercover of glamour and charm, hidden from view. She did not have time for code words and convesations. Her steed, masked by her power, raised no dustcloud nor left any hoofprint, but simply ran with swift grace into the heart of the camp, slowing only to let her rider down.

Edela composed herself and walked into the tent, still invisible, and watched. Mollin showed no sign of perturbance. He showed no sign of realizing she were there. He showed no sign that he had caused death and destruction that might end this army's chances. He simply shuffled papers, hummed to himself, and checked things off a mundane list of supplies. His role as quartermaster was straight forward enough, but he doubled as one of Edela's information filterers. He sifted through reports and made sure she got what she needed. He coordinated. He spoke to agents. He knew their identities, and he knew the army's resources. Of all of her agents, he was the one in position to let such a massive oversight happen.

He should have been running. Edela paused and considered. She did not hire on stupid agents, and Mollin was one of her sharpest. This could easily be a double bluff. Or something more intricate. She took a deep breath, confident in her invisibility, and let her senses roll through the room, seeking answers. She spoke an old poem, invoking the powers of yahas to sense any hidden connections. She traced a rune in the air and let its power reveal truths. And then she revealed herself for the final action.

One of her most basic requirements of her agents was that she had access to their True Names. It required absolute trust on their parts, and it gave her a trump in case the worst happened. To invoke on a Name, however, she had to bare herself. She could not be glamoured, she could not be vanished, she could not be charmed. It was a risky move, but a necessary one. Vanishment faded. Glamour cleared. Charms subsided.

And then, Mollin spoke a word, an unfamiliar word. She could not fathom it in that moment, but she recognized the object that appeared immediately. She ducked before he fired. The bullet sliced through tent wall and hit someone without. Edela spoke her own word, his Name, Amanmuillin Moll.

The old fey twisted in pain as the command made his body spasm. The gun dropped, fired again (striking a pillow), and rested upon the sands. Edela moved to subdue her target, using her power to reach into his very essence, finding new truths.

Others might first want to know why, but Edela wanted to know the extent of the damage first. The extent of the lies. The network was thankfully small--it had to be to get this far--and the compromise limited. But thousands were dying now because of it. All for a long dead Divine...

1. 1. Nathan - Gustav figures out how to fool Mudpie's energy sense. Mudpie protects the wrong flank, to disastrous results.
   2. JT - Noraqqalmud, under siege, screams out blasphemy against the Silver Mother for creating the curse, betrays and kills his men, raises them as undead, and joins the enemy.
   3. JT - Lightning storms
   4. Ian - Casur Fhi distributes wondrous, newly-woven fuligin-filtering masks to the army, but ends up in the med tents from fuligin inhalation himself.
2. The Alliance rallies - the Alliance rallies against the onslaught of Grey and Fuligin, though some fall (14 tokens, 2 per). Includes villains, NPCs, and PCs. Major NPC deaths occur here.
   1. Billy - King Suk Boon-ja rides under the tattered star banner with the remains of his men against a unit of undead chthonians. He is drawn over the Rim to a series of ledges, where he and his men face the terror of falling into The Pit as well as the burrowing undead monsters. The King risks his own life to keep his men from falling, and he is blinded in the fight.

...The King glanced back at the field, littered with the bodies of too many. The Dabbenese soldiers were tying their dying lord to a stretcher to carry off the field, hurriedly trying to draw him away from the oncoming battle. Lord Sukhrab Kohlaba would not live through the hour. He had been an honorable warrior, a wise leader, and a good man, as far as lords go. He cared for his soldiers. He cared about his nation. He cared, and it had killed him.

Suk Boon-ja knew his was a similar fate. The line had broken for miles. The supply lines had been compromised. Thousands were dying. Allied blood washed the fuligin sands, leaving an impassable muck, and water was in short supply now. Undead units were fast approaching, and the only forces left at this position were the Uruoese, a few angry Rothanians, the broken Dabbenese, and five unreadable asterians. The King of Uruo watched them wandering the expanse of dead and dying, and he knew they would fall when the enemy arrived.

He turned to Gyeong. "The star banner."

"Your Majesty?" the soldier asked.

"The star banner," the king insisted.

"Yes, Your Majesty," the soldier responded. The old veteran walked slowly, tiredly to his horse and loosed the banner from its stirrup. He held it aloft a moment, then let the wind catch it. He leaned it against his shoulder and turned to the king. "Your Majesty."

The flag raised in salute, its banner ripped and shredded by arrows, singed by flames, hacked by axes. Tattered, but still flying. The king nodded approval and took a deep breath. He thought of General Seok, of Lord Sukhrab, and of countless others, and then he looked off into the distance at the glowing blue giant that was once the elven leader that had inspried Suk Boon-ja. The king hoped this elf approved of the banner, even now.

He then turned and shouted, "Form up, soldiers of the Fifth Army! The enemy approaches!"

The soldiers milling about the field turned to him. Those who had begun fortifications turned to him. Those who were standing ready turned to him. Those who were thinking of running turned to him.

"You see them! The mounds rushing toward us! We have fought these underdwellers before! We can fight them again! We have not lost this war!" Each sentence was punctuated with a thrust of the flag and a moment's pacing as King Suk Boon-ja rode to and fro before his men. He felt tired, as tattered as his flag. He felt ridiculous, like an imposter. He had seen better leaders die this day. He had lost better leaders to his own stupidity in these last few weeks.

"The Pit is there, not a mile away. This is what we have been fighting to reach. It is within our grasp. Let us not fall now! Ride with me this day, that our children might sing of us!"

And with that, he whirled toward the enemy. He did not look back to see if anyone followed. He simply charged, letting the flag fly as he drew his sword.

He reached the first burrower's mound and let his horse do the work, kicking the fore of the pulsating sand. He heard something crunch, and he knew the undead creature within was slowed, at least. He swung his blade in a clean arc as another bust from the ground, cleaving it a-twain. The halves twitched as they tried to move, but they were unable, no longer a threat. The King roared as he engaged more of the enemy. One, two, five, ten. They came on and on, but he let adrenaline and madness push him. Soon, he was surrounded, but by now, his men were there, and more. Asterians were using some sort of energy weapon to burn the monsters, and the Dabbenese were singing as they fought. The Rothanians were screaming, unleashing a fury few other nations could muster. None of them had holy weaponry anymore, but there were a few with enough magic or supernatural power to slow the onslaught of the grey chthonians.

Still, there were too many of them. The horde pushed the Fifth Army back, and then forth, and then back, like the tide. Their losses grew (and then became one with the enemy), but still they fought. After an hour's bloody butchery, they found themselves by the edge of The Pit, being forced toward it. The King knew they couldn't rappel with horses, but most of their horses were dead (or worse) already. He tossed the star banner to Gyeong, leapt down to the ground, cut a shambling chthonian down, and called for his men to rally.

"Let's see if we can get them into their own godsbedamned trap," he urged, then stepped back, slapped his horse's rump to send it fleeing, and slashed an undead Dabbenese cavalryman down. Leading carefully, he swung himself over the Rim, landing on a wide walkway of fuligin stone. Quickly, the chthonians burst from the cliff wall, but his men deflected the monster over the edge and off into the eternal drop. The King pushed onward.

The ledge narrowed, and the enemy kept coming. Slash, parry, duck, thrust, deflect. Chthonians crawled out of the walls, and the King considered that they must be from the Ninth Army, now corrupted to the Grey. He watched most of them tumble, but a few found footing. Some had weapons, but most fought with sharp, rock-cleaving claws and tiny rock-rending teeth. Bones broke. Flesh ripped. Men died, or worse. And the fight moved on.

The ledge narrowed, and the enemy kept coming. The King made the mistake of looking down, and a feeling of insignificance struck him. His guts churned, and he froze. If not for Gyeong's loyal blade, he would have been torn to pieces. If not for the namless soldier whose scream preceded a tumble into vast fuligin night, he might have remained stunned. But as his blood ran cold with terror at the idea of the fall, the King shook himself awake. He pushed hard against the chthonian horde, shouting an ancient warcry that only a third of his men understood, and commanded Gyeong to keep the banner high. They pushed onward.

The ledge narrowed, and the enemy kept coming. Two more men and a woman--one of the asterians--fell into The Pit. At this point, the enemy was consistently bursting from the wall and going straight over the Rim. The biggest danger was being taken with them, or letting the draw of the depth confuse or disorient. The King pinned himself to the wall and inched forward, heedless of the chthonian threat.

"The way up is ahead. I can see it. Fifth Army, keep moving!"

He remained pinned as they watched him a moment. Finally, an asterian walked forward, carefully slipping past him on the ledge, only a few inches of fuligin stone. He walked easily once past, and moved toward the upward thrust. The king's body spasmed as chthonian diggers shoved hard at the rock behind him.

"GO!" the king commanded, and more soldiers moved past. Another fell before he ever reached the king, but the rest pushed forward.

Another spasm hit as a Rothanian brute was climbing past, and the two tensed for a fall that did not come. The Rothanian laughed, patted the king's shoulder, and took another step. Then plunged as his footing gave way. His scream tore at the king's ears and heart, but he forced himself to watch until the bastard wasn't visible any longer.

Finally, the last of the soldiers slipped past, and the king carefully pushed forward. Blood slicked his back from undead claws and fuligin stone, but as he weakly inched along, he could see the star banner flying above before it all went dark. If you stare into The Pit, they said...

1. 1. JT - A major NPC is thrown into The Pit and hits the invisible barrier of curses, blasphemy, and esoterica that keeps people from teleporting in when they try to teleport themselves away to safety during the fall. They are ripped to pieces in the moment.
   2. Benjesus - Toves and other servants of Death make a last united stand against the Grey armies.
   3. Dani - Earthquakes.
   4. Kei - Deyn finds himself cut off from his unit and must conceal himself in a hastily-created shelter of stone and earth to avoid enemy detection.
   5. Dani - Wormriders make a charge that results in a victory but also heavy losses of their own number and steeds.
   6. Nathan - Gerrick, Tam Lin, and the inexperienced NPC's lure the enemy into a vicious trap.
   7. Kei - Avery finds a hidden route allowing an Allied force to hit the enemy from behind, enabling a successful pincer attack that all but destroys an enemy batallion.
   8. Ian - Prax flashes back to Sourav's death and Aeonian-apotheosis at the moment that an NPC dies. Buoyed by the redemptive power of sacrifice, he does not lose heart, and his forces rally.
   9. Benjesus - Rhomara's sealcasters are slain, but she emerges transformed and victorious.
   10. JT - A swordfight suspended on a narrow ledge over the Pit becomes a fight of legend.
   11. Billy - A mastered Gift is obliterated by Fuligin.

...The old faerie could fight.

Maradir's Sword was useful again now that the Worms were on the Allied side, and he put it to use not just in his role as an adviser. As the enemy swarmed the command camp, the General of the Teg drew the Sword of Wisdom and rode forth. It shone like a beacon, and the nearby troops rallied to its nickel grey light.

Ghef'fhardim called to his aide-de-camp, "Check the right flank!" And then he ran toward the fray, swinging his spear and hook, metal and crystal meeting fuligin flesh. Blood spattered the marshal's face and arms, but he ignored it and kept hacking at the Pit-monsters rushing his position. He cut his way through, striving to reach the old general and bring aid to his friend. Four monsters fell to his blade before he was forced to summon esoteric power to the fight.

He blew the Trumpet. In this realm where teleportation meant death, he could not summon Iniselis to him. He could not summon dragons. But as Master of the Gift, he could use it in novel ways. Its voice repulsed fuligin, bolstered his allies, and gave him the dragon's strength. Ghef'fhardim lowered the Trumpet and charged forward through the open space afforded him, reaching Maradir's side in time to deflect a spear thrust. The two men pushed back against fuligin metal and stood side-by-side a moment. Ghef'fhardim looked quickly toward Maradir, then laughed bitterly.

"How do we get out of this one?"

The ancient fey let his Sword pause in its arc, then redoubled its force and cleaved a Harkanian warrior's head off. "Fight, and pray."

Ghef'fhardim nodded, then pushed forard, drawing the heat of the sun into himself and preparing through lost arts to send a wave of golden flames dancing through the desert. He danced among the enemy, bringing death and pain to them in heavy measure, preparing his burst of sunfire, and then stopped cold as the teg-lord shouted in anger and agony. A quick glance told Ghef'fhardim that his friend had taken a grievous wound. Without hesitation, he brought the Trumpet back to his lips, preparing to bring strength and a bit of space to his staunch ally, but again, he was cut off. Huge claws raked his sides, and he fall almost immediately.

Again, he tried to blow the Trumpet, but vast claws tore at him. Darkness threatened to take him, but Ghef'fhardim refused its call. Swinging the Trumpet like a club, he battered the Pit-monster's gnarled face, once, twice, thrice. Fuligin blood fell, spattering the ground around him. Four, five, six. The Trumpet's graceful curve came back bent and twisted, but still, Ghef'fhardim fought. Seven, eight, nine. A piece of fuligin fang fell to the ground next to him. Ten, eleven, twelve. Each blow left the Trumpet more and more broken, but so too was the Pit-monster. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. A spray of blood told him the beast was nearly dead. Sixteen, seventeen. Ghef'fhardim felt his own power slack as the Mastery of the Trumpet died. What be pulled back for blow eighteen was merely a jagged piece of Godsteel, but it was enough.

He slammed that jagged shrapnel into the monster's eye...

1. 1. Nathan - Mudpie slays a powerful enemy, but a terrible cost to his energy when the blasphemous backlash knocks him on is ass.
   2. Ian - Bramiel's scion is slain.
2. Ian and Dani - Prax and the 13 Hunters face Khanga and the Fuligin Twelve. (Dani and Ian)
3. The Enemy line collapses - vignettes of victories as the Enemy falls back further (7 tokens, 1 per)
   1. Dani - The Cult of the Mouth tears a large fuligin creature limb from limb.
   2. JT - Enemy aerial cavalry arrives but is routed.
   3. Nathan - Tam Lin and Gerrick work together to take a powerful and valuable prisoner.
   4. Benjesus - Alliance assassins strike in concert.
   5. Kei - Wei, whilst trying to flee, is caught and slain by Allied forces.
   6. Ian - Prax slices one of Bramiel's wings off, but he escapes anyway.
   7. Billy - Bluebird Hrielle is defeated as his undead slaves are destroyed by holy powers. The Grey Commander reveals his name.

...Damn the bitch.

Bluebird growled aloud at the sight of holy flames bristling across the paladin's blade. A simple twist of his wrist brought his own blade up against this Dhunic's longsword. The Obiefune sword the grey saint wielded was as strong as his own faith, and his own faith was absolute. The longsword shattered, and Bluebird reached out and touched the paladin's face. The man's eyes went slack and he fell. In a few minutes, he would rise again, a Raesian knight. For now, he was simply an afterthought.

Damn her cowardice. Damn her weakness. Damn her.

Bluebird continued to curse Lilith's failure. Every flicker of holy light, every resounding prayer. Every grey phantasm that faded. Every rotting ambulator that fell. Every cold Death. Every instance of faith on the field made Bluebird cringe and grit his broken teeth. Damn her worm-rotted soul.

The lines had fallen. The Allied forces were pouring through in vast numbers, and the higher ups had yet to unleash the reserves. They had given up the forward positions. Damn her serpent's heart.

He would not go down without a fight. He had reserves of his own, and if he somehow remained unsent through the coming onslaught, he would hunt her down.

Reaching into his blue-tattered robes, the Grey Wanderer drew forth a jagged piece of bone, the bone of his own father's ribcage. He thrust it into the ground, spoke a single word, and watched as the fullness of his Host arose. Thirty-three thousand phantasms and two-thousand corporeal undead monsters shimmerred into existence, ignoring curses and spells, and began to swarm forward at the Allied legions.

Damn her barren womb...

...The unexpected dustdevil rippled through the camp, bringing pure chaos. Wactawa stepped out of her tent and calmly watched. Something felt wrong about the whirling fuligin sands, more so than usual. After a moment, she realized she was feeling uneasy in a specific manner, a manner that she had come to realize meant the presence of undeath. Speaking quietly, she commanded her assistants to protect the patients, and then she stepped out into the whirling storm. The fuligin dust stung as it slapped her scales, little pinpricks that she felt deep in her Soul. Her instinct was to take a deep breath to counter the pain, but any breath in this rasping gale would be death.

She covered her snout with a bandage, then knelt on the ground. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her faith, sensing the pain at the core of this undead manifestation. Flashes came to her of a life in a marsh, of a giantess dying in a rage, spitting vileness as she fell into the blades of angry hunters. She was a cruel woman in life, and in death, her soul became a thing of foulness. Invisible, without substance, it flitted through the wastelands until it found a vessel. For centuries, it brought disease to those that touched it, until a grey figure in a blue robe captured it. Now it scoured this new wasteland, from fuligin blade to Allied buckler, from Allied buckler to saddlebags, from saddlebags to tent flap.

Wactawa focused, stood up, and gestured confidently. A burst of platinum light unfurled from her fist and burned a whirling, tattered scrap of canvas to cinders. The dustdevil died...

...Deftly, Sewael parried the blow, then countered with a quick jab that brought her holy blade into unholy flesh. The vampirirc warrior burned. Around her, her forces were screaming their prayers in a hundred languages. Their faith crackled through the undead ranks, destroying phantasms and corporeal opponents alike. Supplementing their prayers were savage attacks with blessed sword, spear, bow, and other tools of their pilgrimage. Claw, gun, staff, whip. Her motley crew devastated the Grey Host when they clashed.

Very rarely since the turning of the Worms, the Grey would send a more puissant figure, one that even Sewael found difficult to send or destroy. There had been that knight of Kael'Ras with the burning shield, whose faith in the Bone-Mother was strong enough to protect him from all but the most potent acts of faith and blade. And the gashadokuro that had appeared suddenly out past the Worm-Scar. And the chir batti sorcerer, and the cyhyraeths of Maal Canyon, and the seven kukudhis bonded together in dark ceremonies, making them akin to a rune-knight. But the Swanmother had prevailed, and each of these had fallen.

A prayer of protection brought down another phantasm, some poor ghost of a merchant or banker, screaming about his life of greed. He vanished in a white flash. A dozen shamblers wielding clubs, lead by a stinking nachzehrer with a huge blade. Sewael knew them all, for in her Consequence, there were hundreds of undead-hunters. She knew the difference between a hupia and a duppy. She knew how to tell a gjenganger from a nukekubi. And she recognized the old, rotting deer woman in the stone-cloth robes that came down the crest ahead as a spearfinger. What a strange being to appear here.

Seeking to avoid direct conflict--that robe was incredibly effective armor--Sewael sent a prayer out to send her. "Swanmother, embrace this abomination, that she may rise to you from her grey prison."

Her mind crackled with energy, an unfamiliar pain that felt like a cold hand grasping her behind the eyes. The answer to her prayer was a hiss, a mad cackle, and a dazed moment of agony. The spearfinger reached out with her dark mind and sought to break the Bright elf. Through the mist of anguish, Sewael felt some satisfaction. The crone had hit the Consequence of Bright Isle with all she had and found a fortress beyond her imagining. This pain would pass, and if some lucky shambler did not smash her skull first, Sewael would rise and invoke the Pantheonic rite. What was making this spearfinger so powerful?

Grasping her sword and invoking both Grayson and the Alabaster Shield, she rose. "By the sacrifice on the cross, by the Shield of the Meek, by the grace of the Swan, I abjure thee."

The pain faded, and Sewael stood defiantly. Letting holy flame surround her, letting it trace the blade of her sword, she walked with purpose toward the old, cackling crone. No fear. The enemy had no fear even of this show of power.

Sewael gestured for aid. Something was giving this once-cannibal woman more power than seemed possible. Sending an arc of holy fire outward, Sewael cleared a path to the enemy. As she did, a responding arc of rust-hued light flowed back from the long claw of the old crone. It was strong, much stronger than expected, but whatever it was--Sewael knew these beings did not usually command such powers--it was not strong enough to break the Defensatrix Fidei's shielding aura. Sewael approached, determined.

At twenty feet away, the crone summoned undead swarms of locusts. Sewael and her allies took mere moments to burn them away. At fifteen feet away, the spearfinger broke one of her rotted anlters and tossed it into the sands, creating a barrier of msawhat, a wall of grey, corrupting energy. The prayers of a dozen followers of the Swan broke it in seconds. At ten feet away, the crone's babbling was audible, a stream of imprecations and blasphemies that seemed rooted in disdain for all other living things. At five feet away, she lunged with her claw. Sewael dodged nimbly, then brought her blade down. The stone dress served its purpose, deflecting the blow. Again, the claw struck out, and again, Sewael danced aside with the grace of a thousand elven dancers. Quicker than any of her companions could move, Sewael struck again, this time landing her burning white sword atop the skull of the tall, proud crone...

...Her companions looked to her.

The Seventh Army colonel was a Ciceran beloved, and her companions often found themselves staring. She did not mind. The positive feelings they had for her went deeper than the beauty they saw when they gazed upon her, and she could use those deep emotions when necessary. They were literal fuel for her fire. At this time, however, there was little more than fear in their hearts. As the enemy lines collapsed, a force of several thousand Grey soldiers had arisen seemingly out of nowhere. Their moment of victory was being snatched from them by an unexpected response. She felt their cold disappointment as much as their burning terror, and she knew they needed her to lead.

"It looks like we've got an hour before the next wave hits. Sentries keep alert. Everyone else, rest or eat."

She turned back to her tent, thinking of the cool basin of clean water she kept there. Nodding to the guards outside, she entered and took her helmet and gauntlets off before finding soap and brush. Her war with the fuligin sands was nearly as exhausting as her war with the living (or unliving) enemy. It was not a matter of vanity so much as comfort. The grains caught in her armor and grated at her flesh, and she was certain it was doing more than physical damage to her.

She turned to the opening of her tent as a knock on the board alerted her to a visitor. In stepped, carefully, a young lieutenant. Markos, she thought, or Petros. Maybe Paulo. Her contemplation of his name preoccupied her just long enough for him to draw the blade, but not long enough to let him strike. The emotional register in him was all wrong, she realized moments before the blow landed. He felt so hungry.

She whirled and kicked, then ducked and grabbef for her own dagger. Soon, the two were rolling on the rugs, trying to force sharp edges into each other. Paulo--Petra?--was not in control of his own body. He rested deep within, the colonel could sense, angrily fighting some other, some hungry force. The realization left her cold; she was trying to kill a loyal soldier. She shouted for the guards and tried to pull herself away, but the lieutenant's possessor held her fast. His blade scraped down her left arm, and she barked a laugh in order to keep from screaming. Bringing up her knee to his groin, she found out the other benefit of possession was that physical pain was irrelevant to her attacker. The lieutenant felt it, but the mind in control didn't care. She was only making it easier on her enemy.

His heart is still pure. She reached into herself and found every positive emotion available, reached out to the guards, to the passersby outside. Drawing in determination, loyalty, love, honor, respect, defiance, pride... everything. She poured it into Lieutenant Pavlos, damnit, and gave him as much strength as possible. Suddenly, he was being dragged off of her by the guards, and his struggles ceased. He began to weep in terror and confusion, and the colonel knew the leanasche had fled. She knew it for what it was, for in her connection with Pavlos, she had touched its heart.

She began to speak a command, but her voice failed her. Her stomach constricted, her chest siezed, and she dropped to her knees. Her body went cold as she struggled to tell the guards. Pavlos had begun to speak for himself, to collect himself, but the guards were ignoring him. She knew the blade had been poisoned--she had felt that in the leanasche's heart--but she did not expect it to act this quickly. She wanted to absolve Pavlos, to tell the guards he was innocent, but all that came out was a gurgle and a cough. Once more, she tried to speak, but the pain from her failing organs left her no energy to formulate words. With a burst of emotion, she tried to signal her thoughts to the guards, but all they felt was her panic. It was a mistake.

The guard, wracked with the panic of the dying, lashed out at his captive, a crushing blow to Pavlos's skull. The last thing the colonel saw before it all faded was the lieutenant's death rattle. All went dark, but only for a moment. She could hear them speaking above her, shouting, calling for healers, calling for priests. It was too late. When her eyes next opened, she was facing the small mirror she kept hanging in her tent. Her skin was so pale now; she knew she was dead.

Rising slowly, she reached out and felt the soul of the angry sergeant who had taken over at the scene. Ambition. Yes. She could use that...

...The Worm didn't like to be roused from her nap. Can'eldra had been handling unhappy worms since First Shem, though, and she knew how to coax her into action. With a glance at the setting sun, she prodded her mount out over the blacker than black sands. She didn't like moving out after dark, but orders were orders. They had to go replace a Worm that had died to the east, where an unexpected assault from the Grey had nearly routed the front lines.

It was an hour after the sun had slipped completely behind the horizon that she heard the music. It sounded to her ancient ears like something from a Riverkin gathering, but in another tongue. If the Worm was affected, it did not show it, nor slow in its rumbling pace, but the legendary Wormrider was struck dumb by the beauty and haunting elegance of the tune. Rhythmic and melodic, the tune had sharp angles, like the gait of a swift horse turned into inhuman voices. Can'eldra nudged the worm toward the sound, and as the Worm turned slightly, she let the rhythm of the rich, feminine voices lull her into a trance.

About a quarter mile down, just past a series of crags, seven women, completely naked, danced. Their hair fell down their bodies and covered their torsos with ragged, wavy brown tresses, neatly concealing what was beneath no matter how their movements affected it. Each held a candle in her hands and wore bells around their ankles, and several of them had beautiful black wings on their backs. Nearby a few were fuligin chain shirts, lying cast aside for this bacchanal. Can'eldra slid down off the Worm, letting it wander off, and walked slowly toward the Hora, fighting a deep sleepiness that threatened to steal her away.

As she reached the circle, she dropped her blade. She reached down and pulled off ehr sand-hued robes, her concealed daggers, her crystal necklace. She disrobed and stepped into the circle. She had never seen anything like this. She had never experienced anything like it. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the whirling dance and tried desperately to copy their movements.

For some reason, this seemed to enrage them. The women stopped and leapt upon her, instantly furious, and began to claw and scrape at her. Can'eldra screamed and began to fight as the trance wore off, and soon, she was fighting for her life...

...She had no memories.

Kez stood over the body of the strange woman, invoking the power of his god to understand. Her feet were on backward, awkwardly twisted, but she had been ambulatory a moment ago. Nothing in the recesses of her recently de-possessed mind contained any memory of the past hundred years. Before that, she had died moments before her own wedding, killed by a stray bullet from the gun of her fiance, who had been in a duel with his best friend over some trivial matter. The soul that had taken control of her had come from the Hells, unbidden, unsummoned, driven only by opportunity and the aura of grief around her body.

Now, she was a lifeless shell, dead, her soul and the one that had occupied her body gone, sent away by the thrax's Divine might.

He looked about the field of lifeless bodies. Four hundred of them the same. Every one a woman of some Dabusenese race, every one with their feet turned backward, every one once blood-hungry and beautiful, now twisted and hollow.

He turned to the Myrmecian legions behind him and gestured, and as one, they turned and marched onward...

...Lord Lapeyrouse fled in terror. His horse fell under the panicked commands it was given, and the lord did not stop. Behind him, a swarm of twisted, spectral beings floated and shambled along the fuligin sands and stones, filling all who saw them with equal parts disquiet and fear. He let the horse fall to them; Lord Lapeyrouse fled. Behind him, the enemy followed, swarming his men who were too slow. The Galdish cavalrymen were attached to their horses, naturally, and many of them, even in their panic, tried to spare the equines. This only meant the phantasmal approach would have them in its cold embrace. Only the blindly terrified survived.

In the days and weeks to come, the best anyone could identify as their salvation was the shepherd. Most agreed he had been there. He had been helping their medics for several weeks, tending the worst of the wounded with some sort of holy power that had effect even before the Worms had turned. Others claimed it had merely been a miracle, and others still claimed one of the dying men had called out a prayer. But of those few that survived with minds intact enough to answer mostly said it was the shepherd. At first, he had not been there. He had been with the medical unit, almost a mile back, but swifter than possible, he had appeared at the crumbling line and stood before one of the bigger phantasms. Some said it was a giant fish, others a merman or reefman of some sort. All agreed that it showed signs of a slit throat.

The shepherd had done nothing but speak a single word. And then the light came...

...She could feel Matrim nearby. His undying love was the strongest emotion on the field, even stronger than Paul's deep well of emotion. He always felt this way to her, and she assumed it was because when she sensed his emotions, she was near enough to be foremost in his heart. Beneath that love, he felt the steady determination she related to his role as a healer and warrior, a feeling he got when facing a grim but necessary task. Like fighting the undead. Beyond that, he felt revulsion, fear, anger, faith, and hope in equal measures. These mingled with the steady conviction present in his sword, the living ailsilver blade Silfrbal.

Paul was feeling less conflicted than Matrim. Justice was a complex thing for him, but he had faith in his Staff and its powers, and he had faith in the Divines, and he had an understanding of undeath from both his wife and his tragic son. He knew that there was mercy in what he meted out here, and he knew without doubt that these souls that burned at the touch of his Staff were being sent to better realms. His was a cleasning strike. For Matrim, doubt always followed.

Emily could sense their pain through empathic channels, and she felt their relief when her own Staff, the Staff of Oneness, given her by the Miracleman of the Bronccourian Church two Ages ago, struck their forms. Its holiness washed away their pain, gave them awareness, and lead them to a kinder afterlife. Combined with the might of her faith, the Staff was all she needed to fend off the undead. Even the wall of hupias and hitodamas that flowed at her was a matter of a few small movements to send.

Behind her, Matrim faced off with seven crazed peuchens. In her senses, they felt nothing but pain, but outwardly, they seemed like rabid beasts. Three took the form of jaguars, one of a huge bat, one of a flying snake, and one, inexplicably, a llama. Matrim slashed with argent-torched blade at each one, sending them back before striking more decisive blows. They swarmed to him, as a beacon of qi among a thousand soldiers. He stood out as the most potent source of energy for the monsters, and it wounded his heart to unleash such power. Paul, meanwhile, sought out the biggest, toughest monster on the field, a starkad draugr that would have terrified lesser men. With Justice in his hands, Paul was staunch and bold, and he called out the undead giant without hesitation. Though Paul had the skill of a great warrior, the undead had supernatural speed and strength. It was a matter of time before Paul landed a blow that would send the foe, but it kept Paul from unleashing his power against other enemies for the time being.

Emily reached out with her heart and softly whispered a prayer, sending hope and kindness to her husband and her friend, then turned and raised her Staff against the next wave of spectral mists...

...How lovely.

Watching the Allied lines fall back was satisfying, if fleeting. His last act of defiance would not completely break this front, not since that bitch had failed. He could already sense his minions falling in crucial areas. As many as they killed (and turned), they lost ten times that. With any luck, some of the more exotic undead would give them trouble. He hoped someone important died. He hoped, and that made him sick. Hope. How weak had he become?

With a gesture, he summoned a shambler-horse. It stank of the charnal house where it had come from, but Bluebird paid it no heed. He mounted and willed it forward, riding swiftly over the rocky flats along the Rim. Half an hour later, he was approaching the Third Army's main camp, many miles from his previous vantage. Wrapped in spectral invisibility, he moved unseen through the lines, seeking his target carefully. Somewhere in this camp was the tent of the Deaths, the four bearer's of the Gatekeeper's Name. He had hunted them before and been diverted by other tasks and clever ruses, and the damnable Tove family. When the war broke out, he had been called back to serve on the front, but the war was over. Harkan would ride out in a day or so, and he would either succeed or be destroyed. Either way, it would end. Bluebird would serve his Goddess.

Eventually, someone noticed him. They didn't see him, but they felt him. He could tell by the way they startled, or turned, or shivered as he passed. Sensing that time was growing short, he began to employ what few tricks he could. A strong breeze to drag fuligin grit across the camp would serve to deter some of the lesser guards. Shadow selves would lead the more cunning on a wild goose chase. What few noticed him directly would die swiftly. If he survived this night, they would rise later. If not, perhaps they would find rest. He doubted it, though. Not if they died here.

The Rendruan flag. Of course the Death-seekers of Ranu would be guarding the whores of the Gatekeeper. He stopped before the black pavillion and considered. Two guards stood outside the entrance, both of them powerful Rendruan sorcerers. Bluebird glanced down at his mount and smiled.

Dismounting, he slipped, invisibly, behind the next tent over, then willed the undead horse into the visible spectrum. Then, he simply let it loose. Predictably, the guards startled, then began to act, glowing bright with magical power. A blast of well placed wind blinded and distracted one while Bluebird snuck behind the other and unfurled his proboscis. Wrapping it around the guard's head, he shoved the long, insectoid tongue down the man's throat to cut off his scream and drain his qi. He died gurgling while his friend was stomped by the horse.

Bluebird sent the horse to thrash into the next tent over, drawing more guards away, then turned, now visible, into the tent.

The four women were not huddling in fear like he hoped, but kneeling and praying. The power was almost enough to break the ancient undead Seeker then and there, but he drew msawhat from within his broken, withered soul to bolster his decrepitude against the Deaths' faith. Drawing the sword Conviction, he strode with purpose into the well lit center of the tent and began to attack. His blade came perilously close to the skull of the onyx-draped muse before him, but a silver stiletto snaked out of her robes to parry. The Obiefune-forged blade snapped the thin silver dagger, sending shrapnel through the tent, but the move was enough to keep his sword from severing her head from her shoulders. In reaction, he filled the room with shadow selves.

Suddenly, the tent was busy with movement. The other three Deaths were drawing away. The youngest screamed in Galdish some prayer that merely fell befouled in the fuligin air. The goblin swung a huge, silver-laced fist at him, but he dodged nimbly despite his desiccated body. The other drew his attention, however. She appeared to be Lilith herself, somehow. She couldn't be. She's too small. This tent is too small.

Bluebird lashed out at the serpentine monster before him, draped in onyx robes, inexplicably in the guise of the Queen of Worms, and his blade found air where snakeskin should have been. An illusion, of course.

He turned away, back to the muse, who clearly had combat training. Speaking a word of power, he blinded her, then stepped close to bring a killing blow, his blade rimmed with grey flame. His mistake was discounting the illusion, for somehow, she was able to strike him from behind. At first, he thought she had raked his back with a claw of some kind, but the claws hit too many spots at once. Rats. She has covered my back in rats. Growling in irritation--the rats could not harm his undead flesh--he reached back to throw them off, tearing his robes and leaving his stinking corpse exposed.

The muse lunged, but he was quick enough to parry again. Her new blade was ailsilver, and it survived the impact. Argentflame and msawhat mingled a moment, creating sparks, and then they disegnaged. The goblin woman took another swing, but Bluebird ducked, then turned and brought his blade up. It left a deep gash in her right arm and drained the light from her eyes. She would not die, nor rise as undead, but she would not use that arm again any time soon.

The illusory figure, now appearing to be Rosamonde for some reason, swung a staff topped with a large onyx key at him. His sword hacked the top off the prayer-bonded weapon and sent the black stone whirling across the room. He stepped forward and kicked the illusory figure in the stomach, this time meeting flesh. She gasped in pain, but this only gave the muse another chance at attacking him. Her ailsilver dagger bit hard into his shoulder, and he felt it. Argent and onyx. An undead-hunter's weapon. He reached up and let the cold of his hand shock her as he gripped hers. She pulled back, taking the dagger with, and he whirled and slashed her across the upper chest. Blind and bleeding, and still she came.

The goblin was down. The illusionist--what sort of bizarre tactic was that?--was regaining her breath. The child was out of sight--blast her what was she up to?--and the muse was still fighting despite wounds that would fell a worthier opponent. Bluebird growled and unleashed a furious flurry of sword blows, seeking to break her completely. She was using some other skill to see with, he knew. No blind person could fight this well. Seven blows landed, and he finally felt the satisfying crack as her ailsilver dagger succumbed to the superior strength of his paradoxical blade. He thought for a fleeting moment he saw chagrin, or possibly fear, in the empty eyes of the muse, but it passed quickly as he stepped forward to make a final blow. The child had reappeared, below his knees. He stumbled forward in a heap.

The illusionist struck first, bringing down a heavy silver basin onto the back of his knees. She seeks to cripple me, he managed to think before he felt the rats cover him. They couldn't kill him. They couldn't destroy him, nor send him, nor truly harm him. But they could ruin his body if they did enough damage. They could severely inconveience him. Another, heavier blow hit the back of his legs, and he knew the goblin had refound her senses. He pushed back up, but more weight landed on him. A silent prayer had no register, for no Worms served him. A scream of impotent rage escaped him moments before the four Deaths regrouped enough to say the word.

He heard it, and then there was nothing. "Ulune"...

...Polyhymnia considered the blade upon the ground. Around her, the other servants of the Gatekeeper were clearing away the broken clutter and the remains of the grey saint. She was pondering the Obiefune sword he had dropped; it did not look to be inherently evil. Reaching out gingerly, she picked it up, and to her surprise, it flared onyx in her grasp. She felt it fuse with her heart and faith in that instant, and saw its edge sharped and grow dark. Conviction. Its name sang in her mind...

...The Grey Commander let the fuligin-viper entangle his rib cage. It felt good to let his ancient totem embrace his rotted heart. It felt almost like being alive again. He sat astride a helhest and listened to the reports from his minions. The Allies had rallied, and the front lines had collapsed. Again. No matter how hard the Grey and Fuligin pushed back, the Allies still pushed harder. He knew Harkan would ride out soon. He knew he had to match the Fuligin King's maneuver or be crushed for treachery. Elpidian had been clear: Harkan expected their full support. So be it.

Raising his hand, he silenced the babbling vampire. Surveying his forces, the elite of the Grey Host, he silently willed them to follow. He nudged his mount, and he rode out. Via his bond of control, he sent them each the message. Speak my name, he commanded. Speak my name and let them know fear.

And they obeyed, chanting, slowly, "Kael'Quillin..."

Phase Four: Harkan's Last Stand
This is the battle with Harkan's core forces. It will begin with the push back from Harkan's forces and end with Harkan's death.

1. Harkan rides forth (Billy)

Breginthresh 20 / Fysirym 6, 1003: 

...He didn't need the report, but he listened anyway. It gave him time to consider his options. His army was stretched around the Rim, and the Allies were concentrating on only a few hundred miles. He had pitted the fortifications around the northern edges, knowing full well the Allies couldn't reach there anyway. Duke Craedrick had seen fit to ignore the summons, however, and about 20,000 Harkanians were hanging back at Algram Point, about fifty miles north of the Allied front. The bastard was waiting it out, looking to be the next king of Harkanheim. That left only 235,000 loyal soldiers, only half of which were along the front at this point. He could expect about 30,000 more to join him.

The Allies still had about a million in the field. That cunning worm had devised a rotating deployment plan with those supply lines and staging areas all across the Field. Constant guerilla strikes, from land and air, had done little to deter those. They simply had too many forces and too strong a defensive strategy. Their supernatural power was not as strongly affected by the fuligin dust as expected, in part due to Lilith's betrayal, partly due to that blasted Messiah, but mostly due to the fact that they had come with their reserves, allowing magi and other esotericsts to rest.

They could no longer hope to outnumber them. The Grey Host's numbers seemed infinite, but the numbers became meaningless in the face of the Allied faith. The Pit-monsters theoretically had no end, but they could not be produced fast enough. What they lacked in numbers, they would now make up for in power.

"Bring me Har'kash," the King demanded. His best steed, the eight-legged Pit-monster, the first he tamed. The wings of a dragon, the face of a falcon, the body of a cougar. Har'kash moved like a river through canyon and fought like the WAR GOD's own.

The King stood. "And muster the Royal Guard. We ride within the hour..."

...He let them gird him. His usual finery (all in fuligin cloth) was set aside for his mail, Pit-black fuligin chain draped over him. A helm crafted like a cross between a demon's face and a crown, baal-dark metal and studded with one gem for each God of The Pit, the gods that died after Starfall, an impenetrable aura emanating from it. His gauntlets, made from the hide of a Pit-monster, and his boots made from the same. Fuligin plate wrapped his legs and bolstered his arms and chest. His belt was more Pit-monster hide, and his scabbard was baaltree wood and Pit-leather.

His sword was a fuligin great sword he named Godsbane. Inlaid in its Pit-monster bone hilt were strands of hair from each God of The Pit, and recently, he had had his artificers fashion the baalseed into the pommel. The sword, also called Giftbreaker, had exchanged blows with the Queen of Cats once, and though she escaped with her Sword, it was cracked. She had not returned from The Pit, nor did he expect her to. Godsbane was the greatest fuligin weapon ever forged, and into it had been wrapped eight curses, seven anti-prayers, and four broken souls. Each of these was bound together by an energy not even Harkan understood, but it made the sword unbreakable beyond even the measures of Gifts and fuligin weaponry.

Over his armor, he wore his mantle. Made from finely crafted fuligin thread, from the spider-like Pit-monsters that lived in the edges of the Bear's Heart, this mantle also had hairs from the Gods of The Pit woven into it. This gave Harkan an aura of faith-destroying might that trumped even the power of the Worms of Law, ten miles wide. It thrived off his own beating heart, so that it only worked when worn. It made the Grey nervous, and so he forwent its power.

Until now.

Now, he would ride forth...

...He recognized them as Third Army. Good. Precisely who he wanted to hurt. They relied most on faith.

Tara'hinian regular infantry, he recognized by their golden disc banners. Windkin cavalry, Rendruan pathfinders, and... Oh yes. Guardians. Jesumeinian elite forces. Harkan laughed as the panic set in, as their lines realized their prayers had not been answered, as they saw the fuligin pennant, the Pit-black banner with no sigil. Harkan himself rode here, they now knew, and no power on Shem would save them.

He drew Godsbane and sniffed the air. Some of them had Gifts.

This was going to be a good day...

...Maradir called out an order, and six colonels rushed to obey it. Ghef'fhardim almost found time to smile at the sight, but the urgent matters in front of him wiped it away. Harkan has riden forth. He scanned the documents, assessed instantly, and added orders to the litany being recited by his advisers, generals, and aides. Damn it all. We thought we would be ready.

He drew a line and made a note. "Send word to Lord Tecumseh, to the Red Master, and to--" Damn. "Da'sabash. Cut off his advance."

Maradir shook his head, "Can't you get the logos to intervene?"

"Not yet, general," Ghef'fhardim responded. "If we can take the Pit-King down without expending Nas's strength, we'll have that much more for The Pit."

The old fey sighed, "I hate a weapon I can't use..."

1. Major losses for the Alliance - The core of the Grey and Fuligin Armies has a series of sweeping victories (7 tokens, 1 per, all NPC deaths)
   1. Kei - While attempting to rejoin the bulk of the forces, Avery runs afoul of a band of fuligin monsters. He manages to escape, barely, but the wounds received prevent him from returning to the field.
   2. Dani - Faith dies permanently in various minor NPCs as Harkan's full might sweeps over them.
   3. JT - Rindacsa goes on a rampage and loses control when she realizes just who the Neverman erased.
   4. Ian - Mara Tslea is carried off into the sky as Bramiel returns to the field, whole once again and wielding a terrible grey blade. She falls into the Pit singing songs of the sea and victory.
   5. Nathan - Gerrick is wounded in the fight, and taken out of action, but still gives commands from the back, proving a brilliant commander. Tam Lin acts as his "avatar" on the field.
   6. Benjesus - Rhomara becomes reckless and is overwhelmed.
   7. Ian - Aisling Caillte is choked to death by an undead monster with no light behind its eyes.
2. Miracle at the Rim - in face of enormous losses, a Miracle occurs (1 token, 7 authors? maybe?)
3. The Final Advance - the fall of the core of the Grey and Fuligin Armies. This should see the conclusion of almost every arc. (21 tokens, 3 per)
   1. Kei - A second Bulyemeh rises from The Pit.
   2. Dani - An undead sandworm bears a powerful villain into battle.
   3. Benjesus - A massive joint faith effort/sacrifice tears apart a major fuligin contingent.
   4. Billy - An enormous, fuligin-infused moth. Ybraulk's triumph.

...They fled.

Cork had so carefully selected them, the bastards. The hardest, nastiest bruisers, killers, and butchers in the First Army, and they fled. Cork would be disappointed, Ybraulk knew, but it didn't matter right now.

For the last day, the monsters had risen with a greater frequency, and the squad known as Murderer's Row had taken it upon themselves to shove them back down as quick as they came up. Fuligin alligators crossed with boars, monsters mixed of griffon and wyvern, creatures akin to rams and wolves, and one that was wasp, bat, and crow all made no impression on the blackhearts, cutthroats, and footpads that Cork had convinced to ride with Ybraulk.

And then arose the moth.

Scanning the Gift-imbued Consequence within him, Ybraulk searched for a reason why. Nothing seemed to make sense, so he assumed that the monster had some sort of aura of fear about it that he, having the mental strength of the greatest blackfang trolls to ever live, simply did not register. He sniffed the air.

Cinnamon? He shrugged. Whatever it smelled of, he would kill it. Lifting his Waylon-forged spear high, he leapt forward, letting his body crash into the huge moth. At forty feet in wingspan, its every beat sent fuligin dust swirling around the Rim, forcing dustdevils and sandstorms to germinate. Ybraulk ignored that, for his power was Dragon-born and inflexible, unscathable. He came down in a decepitvely gentle arc and crashed into the moth.

The spear plunged into the carapace of the fuligin moth and stopped. A rasping noise like metal bending scraped his ears and he looked up to see neither spear nor carapace give way. The moth ignored him entirely, as if he were a mote of dust. It flapped its wings, and new dust storms arose. Lifting himself up by the spear, Ybraulk wedged himself behind one of the monster's legs, wrenched the spear free, and tried again, aiming between plates.

Nothing. Nothing.

The moth drifted in the air, floating forward, leaving Ybraulk hanging to the moth's appendages. He moved to get on its back and try again. This time, he drew on more ancient strength. The blow would have broken a god, and yet here, it only scratched this monster's shell. He sniffed again, and his eyes narrowed as recoginition finally hit.

The Hollow Child.

Casting out a message through Rosalie's Heart, Ybraulk sought information. /This moth smells of the Hollow Child. How?/

Cork's reply was nearly instantaneous, /Because it smells like a moth?/ Ybraulk ignored him and waited for a more intelligent answer.

/I sense both undead energy and blasphemy in it/, Mudpie answered. /Need help over there?/

/No/, Ybraulk answered. /I am Death's hand and the Dragon's hunter./

/Right/, Mudpie's response came, accepting bluntly the troll's assertions.

Prax's answer came next, /I can sense strange turns in his story. A crushed moth tossed into The Pit, a dying god, a transformation./

/It is both undead and fuligin/, Wactawa said. /Some disciple of the Hollow Child must have gathered part of his remains and performed a blasphemous ritual./

/Thank you/, Ybraulk responded, feeling the expression of gratitude jar with the Consequence within him. He ignored his ancestry and returned to the ask at hand.

He jabbed the spear into the shell and used it to leverage himself up, toward the head. On the upper segment of the monster, he reached down, pulled his spear up, letting it scrape the chitinous shell along the way, and then looped his arm around its head. The beast finally responded to his presence, attempting to shake him off. Below, troops were panicking, and Ybraulk guessed this monster was emanating the unease of undeath in a massive way. His Gift simply neutralized that particular side effect of msawhat.

The moth curled in on itself, bringing its lower body up, truncating the parts Ybraulk had to hold onto. It flapped rapidly, slamming the troll with its wings, and began to bob and weave unpredictably. At the nadir of one of its dives, Ybraulk leapt off, landing among a group of fleeing satyrs. They quaked in fear at the massive troll's sudden arrival, but he ignored them. Closing his eyes, he sought within. The power of the Dragon's Son included the power of the gates, the mysteries of death.

The black chamber. The silver path, a thin thread of light that twines around itself. The first gate, a point of light, white and cold. Opens with certainty. The second gate, a vertical line, a slit of silver in the black oblivion, at the end of the second path. Opens with fear. The third gate, a vast grey X. There are two paths, take the left, enter the third gate. Opens with longing. Three paths to the fourth gate, in time and space, beyond the edge of the black chamber. A pentagon in the swirling forever, that opens with acceptance.

Ybraulk opened his eyes, and in his mind, the Key still hung in the emptiness. Turning toward the moth, he ran, a quarter mile in mere moments. Beneath the moth, the living fled and the dead arose, fuligin-infused shamblers. Before Ybraulk, the same collapsed, the shebvic power of the gates emanating from him. Once he was beneath the moth, he leapt, and touching it, he brought Death...

1. 1. Kei - Deyn leads his company in a sneak attack against a larger enemy force. The enemy is defeated, but Deyn is the only man left standing of his company.
   2. JT - Jheshemirath helps Rindacsa recover before her Ring can exact it's terrible curse.
   3. Billy - An enemy cannibal has eaten our dead and gained their power.

...Her teeth met bone, which snapped.

Har'hagga crunched the delicate bird bones and savored the taste of blood and feather and flesh. It was rare to find a flyer.

Born in the breeding pits, Har'hagga could not say who her parents had been. She had been among the first of the self-evolving generation, a mixture of races. Agikaani science, Vesturian arts, and Krev stock combined in a fuligin furnace to create them, and now, the taste of flesh and blood drove them. She finished off the yankiir's wing, heart, and eyes, then felt her gut churn. Her back spasmed, and her naked body writhed. She rolled on the ground, rubbing the fuligin sands against her tail and teets, feeling the grit mingle with blood and shit, letting the rot around her infuse her skin. The undead and the dead alike made usable remains for her body painting. She had to be properly attired for the transformation.

Her back twisted, and she felt bones break. Her ribs were cracking and her skin was only half-dressed in the sludge of a hundred deaths. She rushed, rubbing more of the Allied soldiers' ichor and excrement into her furry flesh. As she did, she smelled blood and felt it seep from her eyes and ears. Her hair seemed to singe as it bonded together, supernaturally forming a hardened surface that would sprout, in a few moments, thick Pit-black feathers. She fell forward.

Her back arched.

Her legs went limp.

Slits opened down her on all sides, and from them, new limbs emerged. Two new arms, a set of huge falcon wings, and a second tail, all slick with blood as dark as blasphemy, unfurled...

1. 1. Ian - Rafu runs off on his own, speaking softly to the assembled armies, allowing a savage ambush to take place.
   2. Dani - The Red Cloaks make a final stand against a fuligin creature never before seen.
   3. Benjesus - A major villain is teamed up on by several legendary NPCs.
   4. Ian - Despite the best efforts of our healers, Casur Fhi's condition worsens. Prax flashes back to Sourav saving a pilgrim with silvran healing breath, his earliest memory of his ambition to tend the afflicted, and he returns having lost his sleep-breath power but gained a much more powerful version of his silvran racial ability. Fhi recovers and incorporates his recovery narrative into his breathing masks.
   5. Kei - Shara wins a desperate duel in which she wields the Sword with the skill of thousands of elves but still doesn't know what she's doing, trusting instinct.
   6. JT - Noraqqalmud strikes the enemy from behind, dooming himself but saving thousands.
   7. Billy - The warlocks aid the Chrysanthemum in battle.

...The Tara'hinians kept their promises. Walking among their forces, the two old warlocks never once saw their duplicitous master. In turn, the warlocks served them well. Their power proved useful against both Grey and Fuligin, unfazed (perhaps even stronger) by the wearying fuligin dust and the limitations of facing the undead. Quite simply, a curse could affect anyone, if used properly, and the warlocks were experts.

Idir walked along, slowly, with Rufarro by his side, listening intently to the steady pace of the infantry. They were uncomfortable with the warlocks, but they followed orders. And orders required they accept the warlocks' aid.

"Fall back!" sounded through the ranks. Soldiers began to, in an organized fashion, follow through. One man would stand, one would move back. Then they would switch, in a repeating pattern, until everyone had reached the fall back point, a standing order of 100 feet back unless otherwise indicated.

The warlocks ignored the order and waited.

"What do you see?" Idir asked.

"I see a pack of Pit-monsters. They look like jackals," she answered. "But they smell like lizards."

The blind man nodded and placed his hands on the ground. The sands before the Pit-jackals, some 50 yards away, erupted, cursed now to forever repel the ground. A curtain of rasping grains took the beasts by surprise, ripping their flesh from their bones rapidly.

"The soldiers do not like this," Rufarro told her companion.

Idir stood up, "They would have preferred death?"

"Some of them," the panthress said...

1. 1. Nathan - Tam Lin and Gustav have a "foe-tossing-charge" moment, they clash, and their fight ranges all over the rim. Tam lin faces certain death from a trap laid by Gustav, but Ansley sweeps in with the Troublemakers, allowing Tam Lin to finish pursuing and finish off Gustav. Tam Lin must rely on the Erlking the way Gerrick relies on the Troublemakers.
   2. JT - Ledyim suffers a mortal fuligin wound-- his faith severed from him, the Gods are deaf to him now.
   3. Dani - Aleel'aqallah, after a trying time and several failed attempts, succeeds in assassinating a key enemy commander
   4. Billy - King Suk Boon-ja has no time to get to the healers, so he rides forth without sight. His men guide him by voice during the fight, and he stands for a long time with their aid, but one by one, their voices stop coming as they are killed around him. Eventually, he, too, falls.

...The soldier leading his horse stopped, and so, too, did the horse.

The Fifth Army company now lead by General Yeong had been cut off for days by the Fuligin Host. King Suk Boon-ja rode in darkness, grim and silent, and his men rode with him. They guided him through the rocky landscape for days, but no Allied encampment was found. They had pulled back or been repulsed. He could tell that no one wanted to admit to him that there was no healer on the way, no salvation coming soon. Eventually, they would meet another enemy company, and they would have to leave him.

He accepted this, and he spoke of it daily to General Yeong. The old man said nothing in response, but the King knew he would do the right thing.

Lost in thought, it took the King a moment to realize that the soldier had spoken. "I'm sorry, Gyeong. What did you say?"

"Your Majesty, the enemy approaches."

The King nodded, reaching for his sword. He paused at the hilt, letting regret fill him. Gyeong said, "Your Majesty, draw your sword. I will guide you."

"Soldier, you need to consider your own skin," the King said, hiding his surprise.

Gyeong said, "Yes, sire." But he did not move.

The King could hear the approaching cavalry now. He could hear the clang of metal on metal moments later as the enemy engaged his comapny. He could hear the sound of men dying.

"Left," came a voice nearby, and the King knew what it meant. He could hear the horse, and he could feel the rider. He swung his blade, and it met another. Urging his horse to action, he turned and swung again, and he felt with satisfaction as it met flesh.

"Back," another voice called. The King whirled, swung, and took down the Harkanian before he could strike. He knew they couldn't keep this up. The simple commands would not be enough.

"Back," Gyeong called. The King pushed forward to dodge, and as he did, he felt the blade bite into his shoulder. He turned and hacked, and his sword caught the man's arm. He hacked again, and again, and again, until the enemy was gone.

"Forward," he heard, and he lunged. The sword hit what he suspected was a horse's head. He was sure this was not his intended target, but it seemed to have worked. The attack did not come.

"Left," Gyeong called again. The King spun and swung, hitting a shield. He pushed and adjusted, and swung again. A blade took him in the leg, and he used that to adjust his own aim. He hacked and hacked again, driving back the new foe.

"Left," another call came. For long minutes, the King fought as seemignly his whole company shouted instruction. He hacked and slashed and took wounds to his side, his arm, his legs, and his horse. After some time, he started to gain some confidence.

"Right," came a hoarse shout, and the King knew Gyeong was suffering. He turned right and parried, through sheer luck, what felt like an axe. He heard a sound he knew to be a breaking sword, but he reached back and hacked anyway. As expected, his blade shattered, but the head of the man or woman he struck caved in.

"Here," a voice said. A Rothanian sword hilt entered King Suk's hand.

"No, soldier, I can't," he replied. But the man was already gone. He called out twice more, but all he heard in response was "Right!"

He turned and struck. The voices were fewer now. "Left," he swung.

"Back," he whirled.

"Forward," he struck.

The Harkanians tried to imitate the commands, but the King could tell them by accent. He knew his men's voices, and he knew a Harkanian accent. He ignored them, or used them to strike at nearby foes.

"Left," came Gyeong's voice, weaker now. The King struck left, and his sword dug deep into something. A horse? A huge opponent? He could not tell. No one screamed, but no attack came. He drew back.

"Back," a rasping cough managed. The King knew not who it was, but he turned behind him and struck. His sword hit nothing, and a blade caught him in the stomach. His mail kept it from his flesh, but the blow threw him from his horse. He landed, hard, rolled, and struggled to his feet.

"Right," a voice called. He turned right and swung. His sword found purchase in something's neck. He hacked twice more and felt certain he had taken someone's head off.

An arrow struck his shoulder, and he fell to his knees. He reached up, pulled it out, and stood, defiantly.

"Back," a voice told him. He turned and swung, battering wildly against an enemy sword. Knowing he could not parry with any certainty, he screamed, letting his rage and pain erupt, and swung with a chaotic flurry. The fifth stroke, swung low, bit into his enemy's arm. He repeated the same until it found nothing.

"Left," the voice said. He turned and thrust. His blade hit metal and snapped. He jumped to tackle instead and felt blades tear his face, hands, arms, chest. He struggled with his invisible opponent, desperately beating at him or her until it stopped moving. He whirled as someone said, "Right."

His fists met something. He beat at it, his arms as heavy as lead. It stopped moving, and he tried to catch his breath. Moments passed, and no more voices came to him. He heard arrows land nearby, and laughter from afar. He felt the sting of a dart in his already wounded shoulder.

"Gyeong!" he shouted. "Yeong!"

No one answered. More arrows came, more laughter. And then a pain blossomed momentarily in his stomach before everything stopped...

...He had been the first king of Kael'Ras, lord of the small nation of devout followers of the gods. Not any specific gods. Just the gods. They prayed for good harvest and for protection against bad harvest. They prayed for the bodies of the living and the souls of the dead. They had been prosperous, until the plague hit. Forty thousand people died, and though it grieved him to watch, he would have weathered it had it not been for Aer'Lianne. She had not reached a year old when the plague took her from him, and on that dark day, the entire kingdom died. He turned, in his grief, to the grey priests. Their faith was not illegal, so long as they did not enforce their powers, but they were shunned among the people. Still, the king turned to them.

They agreed, of course, readily. They brought her back, and at first, she seemed to be a normal, healthy child. But those were the blind eyes of a father, and everyone around him--his wife, his son, his friends, his advisers, his sister--they all saw her for the abomination that she was. They also knew the price he had paid, and they lived in terror. The plague still killed thousands outside the palace, and the people were beginning to riot as well. But the king had turned his back on all but the rotting, ambulatory corpse of his daughter.

Unable to bear it, his sister did what she had to. She stole the child at night and washed it in holy water, letting it burn away, then she took more of the water and came unto the king's chambers. Instead of her brother, she found instead the grey priests, waiting. They fell upon her and slew her, and in the morning, they went ot the king and showed him what she had done to his daughter. Distraught, he took the ashes out to the ponds behind his palace, and there, he walked into them. He drowned, and at midnight, he rose again. Undead. Rotting. His soul was already sealed away, at the behest of the grey priests, into a phylactery hidden deep within their temple. He rose from the waters, and with him, rose the entire populace. Every plague death became a servant of the Bone-Mother. Every living thing slowly wasted away and joined them.

Kael'Ras became an undead wasteland.

Hundreds of years later, Kael'Quillin, as he eventually styled himself, would be destroyed by the power of a Messiah. Ages later, a world later, he would arise again. Now, he rode in the Grey Host as its Commander, more ancient and terrifying than any undead before or after. His heart was wrapped in a viper--his ancient phylactery--and none could oppose his might. A hundred knights of Kael'Ras, his kingdom, rode beside him. A thousand wraiths filled the air around him. Even as the lines broke around him, his held...

...His hair streamed out behind him. His stallion charged across the fuligin desert, Behind him rode Na'Amah in her robes, her war hammer in her hands, and a host of three hundred riders from the remnants of almost every Army. They rode with the tides of victory, and the wall of undead ahead of them would not break them. Banners of gold and white, of iridal and scarlet, of copper and lapis, of platinum and pearl flew among them, and these banners called to them the holiest warriors from the Allied Armies. A shimmering wall of faith stood around them as they charged.

Alan Caer raised a warcry. Behind him, three hundred men and women repeated it, and the air crackled with power.

He drew his sword, full again twice his size, impossible to wield by any normal man. But Alan had strength beyond mortal measure, and his sword was blessed by the Swanmother herself. It was forged by the Impossible Smith and crafted with angel hair and swan feather. It was made to slay demons, but undead would do.

The ground between the two forces was swallowed up in the dust clouds of two opposing cavalries, and when they clashed, the air filled with flame and agony from both sides. Alan brought his massive blade around, sending waves of righteous flame in broad arcs that demolished the undead. Four times he whirled the sword, and four times, nothing but ash was left in its wake. Around him, his allies unleashed the powers of heaven upon the Grey Host, sending wraiths and blind knights into the burning beyond.

And then the chant began. "Kael'Quillin. Kael'Quillin."

The undead moaned and hissed and rasped and creaked, and the name repeated from their hollow throats. "Kael'Quillin. Kael'Quillin."

Alan knew the name, of course. Every servant of the Holy Host knew the name. He looked about, fear cradling his heart as the chant continued. "Kael'Quillin. Kael'Quillin."

Na'Amah rushed to his side, her hammer bringing its own kind of judgment. "What are they saying?"

"They speak the name of the first bash tchelik king of Kael'Ras," Alan answered. "I fear it is more than a rallying cry."

Na'Amah nodded, then gestured with her maul. Alan looked, and there, atop a helhest, rode the Grey Commander. Alan did not hesitate, but urged his stallion toward the monster. His blade raised in defiance, he met the Raesian king. The first clash killed both steeds. Alan was upon his feet first, but his sword took more time. Kael'Quillin rose and summoned a spectral blade to his hands. The giant holy blade came up and over Alan in a great overhand blow, while the spectral sword rose to meet it. The impact tore the very ground from beneath them.

Scrambling, Alan was forced to drop his sword as fuligin sands became a downward flood. A vast crevasse was opening, and the Grey Commander's response had simply been to levitate. Alan watched his sword slide into the hole and said a silent prayer. Pulling himself up, he drew his dagger and prepared himself for the blow. The phantasmal blade slammed into the holy, golden blade, and Alan fell to his knees. The Grey Commander laughed, hissed, and struck again, missing only by inches. Alan raked upward with the dagger, but his blade was turned by the Commander's strengthened bones. A series of exchanges followed as Alan and Kael'Quillin failed again and again to harm their foe. Around them, the war carried on, but they didn't see anything other than each other. Msawhat and heavenly light mingled and flared, and Alan and Kael'Quillin both called to their gods.

Kael'Quillin lashed out with his free arm, hurling Alan back. He landed, hard, on the edge of the newly opened chasm, stunned. Struggling to get to this feet, he saw the grey shadow cover him, and he knew the agony that was about to meet him. He closed his eyes and prayed for salvation.

And so he received salvation. Into his hands, the hilt of his sword fell. Without hesitation, he brought it up and slammed it into the Grey Commander's unsuspecting body. The body of the bash tchelik erupted into holy blaze as the sword--as big as he was--ripped through him. The viper in his rib cage, the ancient phylactery, burned with him, and in that moment... he faded from existence, as if he had never been.

"An echo," Na'Amah said from behind Alan.

Staring, trying desperately to catch his breath, he just shook his head. Without looking, he said, "Thanks for bringing me my sword."

She nodded. "You are most welcome, Alan Caer..."

1. 1. Nathan - Angela Murray returns, and gives her life to save large swaths of allied forces from certain death. She is now returned to her god.
   2. Ian - Bramiel is pulled from the sky by the united Hunt and slain by Prax wielding Foiche Maru, now blazing with Life.
   3. Benjesus - Dullahan chases Tom Fool into the Catacombs.
   4. Billy - Erlking/Tam Lin banter.
   5. Nathan  - The last gift of Father Crane, long after his death
   6. Nathan - Both of Mudpie's gods do something, ironically at the same time and with the same intent, to make sure he lives through to face the Pit. Mudpie loses consciousness here, and can only be awakened by Inelle protecting him from the divine backlash. Mudpie is split into primal and celestial halves. Inelle loses her portion of the Gift in the process.
2. Kei and Billy - Shara vs. Styrah Rhee and Rosamonde

...She adjusted her cloak, letting the small movement serve as her only signal. Around her, one hundred wraiths swirled into action, flowing forward in a rush of mist and msawhat, sweeping over the Allied force. Styrah Rhee smiled, her once-silver flesh ripped slightly at the edges of her mouth. The Allied soldiers below her position met the wraith swarm and died in horror. Though the Allied forces had the Worms now, they still could not withstand her might.

Beside her, her former adversary drew back her bow. Rosamonde, the Grey Elf, aimed for a specific target, a single enemy. There. A gout of argent flame told her that the ashar-masters had arrived. She loosed her arrow and watched it fall, plunging into the heart of an Ailanean mistress of lifeforce at over 1000 yards. The arrow, empowered by msawhat and wintry night, would break even the ashar-protection of the ancient master, bringing another slave to the Grey Host. She turned to Styrah and said, "We should ride. I sense someone of greater import arriving."

Styrah looked ot her, then out across the field. "The star?"

"No," Rosamonde said. "He still remains aloof. This is the one they dare try to replace me with."

"Ah, that one." Styrah laughed. "Let us meet her..."

...[Shara intro - Shara is just joining the fight agains tthe wraiths]...

...Rosamonde rode a measured pace upon her rotting charger. Styrah, upon a bone-white stag, stenching with a hundred years of decay, kept pace beside her. The Allied forces around them died and rose again as the wailing wraiths melted their flesh and bones with cold and corruption. The Grey Elf watched the struggle ahead, the furious walls of argent might burning away her forces, but she remained unconcerned. Adjusting her ring, she called upon its power and a wall of grey fog coiled around her. Picking up her pace, she and Styrah rode to meet the Elf Incarnate.

The fog of undeath met the argent flame in a slow, infrequent fashion, and the commingling created strange gasps of steam, gouts of energy as two opposing forces struggled for dominance. Soon, the fog was burning off, but it lasted long enough to push the two undead elves through. Bursting forth from the crumbling wall of holy blaze, Rosamonde and Styrah's steeds leapt into the fray against the ashar-masters, and the elves clashed in a clatter of bone-sword and ailsiilver. Eight ashar masters were down at the hands of the ancient and powerful before they Anasharia reached them with her own power.

[Shara's first strike against them - pushes them back but doesn't cause major damage]

[Rosamonde uses the powers of an unfahtomably ancient grey dragon via her ring]

[Styrah Rhee summons cold so bitter it freezes Shara's blood]

[Shara digs deep into her well of power and finds ancient lore on facing the undead - she wraps herself in ashar and warmth]

[Styrah Rhee wields a corrupted ailsilver dagger, seeking to break Shara's new defenses]

[Shara repulses Styrah, but this allows Rosamonde to strike]

[Rosamonde begins to drain Shara's soul]

[Shara fights Rosamonde mentally/metaphysically, but the former Elf Manifest is simply too powerful]

[Styrah Rhee taunts Shara, and one of the taunts touches on something that sparks Shara's resistance to renew]

[Shara breaks Rosamonde's hold and lashes out with pure ashar, and Styrah Rhee is immolated with holy flame]

[Rosamonde lunges in with a bone-sword, but Shara moves with the grace of a thousand elves; the two fight sword-to-hand, Shara mostly dodging, waiting for the moment to strke, Rosamonde skillfully guiding her blade, getting a few minor flesh wounds in]

[Shara sees the opening and takes it, plunging her open palm into Rosamonde's chest, unleashing ashar and burning her from within]

[Rosamonde burns, destroyed, and then Shara hears Styrah Rhee laugh]

[Invisible, insubstantial, Styrah Rhee possesses Shara - as a bash tchelik, Styrah is unkillable until her phylactery is destroyed]

[Shara allows him to control her body, but burrows into the mind of all ancient elves, seeking answers; within her are the memories of Styrah herself, and there, she sees Styrah's downfall. She finds out what the phylactery is]

[Shara forces Styrah Rhee out of her body and mind and soul and heart, cleansing herself with ashar, then draws upon Styrah's own powers to summon the phylactery - a simple silver heart on a chain. She destroys it, and Styrah with it]

1. Benjsus and Billy - Nas vs. Harkan

...Kyel Ennasrion watched.

Wrapped around the Fuligin King were powers too intense for mortals to discern. The Pit's blasphemous energies pervaded him, looped about in strands that emanated from his flesh, his blood, his Name. Corrupted ashar, tainted Pit-black by some ancient rejection, emanated from the pommel of his sword, and that power meant that every strike with the blade would drain lifeforce from its victims and turn it into blasphemous energy to empower the King. His armor, his helmet, his mantle, they all were bound to corrupted Divine essence of such enormous might that it seemed multiple Divines had died to build them. And perhaps that was so. Also wrapped around the King were curses. Curses were a strange energy, poioumenonic but darker and separate. These curses, whose origins were completely obfuscated even unto the logos, brought yet more power to Harkan. Laced in were souls of his enemies (and a few former allies), souls corrupted by sacrilege and profanity.

But most of his power simply came from The Pit. Being near it meant he drew its strength. It was not direct, intentional. Blasphemy simply drew blasphemy. Were Harkan even a few miles further out, it would do him no good. But he remained here now, swathed in fuligin.

Thundering across the rocky region known as the Rim, the King rode a huge Pit-monster into battle with a wall of faith-destroying power around him. The effect was crippling to the Allied forces, neutralizing even some Mastered Gifts. His huge sword swept away warriors that would be revered as legendary in other circumstances. His armor deflected weapons that would defeat dragons, giants, and even gods. And his meancing presence made even the bravest among them weak with terror.

Kyel Ennasrion watched, studying his enemy intently...

...Solidity was an illusion. All things, no matter how hard they seemed, had some give. They were not solid. They were made of a billion tiny pieces, and those pieces could be moved.

Xiao could sense them. To him, a solid sword was merely a slow moving liquid, a compact flow that needed only encouragement. Attuned to the beat of his own heart, he was attuned to the movement of the particles in the world, or at least, in the world's metal. As he moved, so too did these particles.

Early on, he had learned that bone-swords were a problem. He had nearly lost his life, and he counted himself lucky it had only been his ear. He had requested a place in a new unit, a mobile unit that served as backup specifically to those facing the Fuligin Host. His commander had seen the wisdom of this and approved the transfer. In his first mission with them, he had shown his new comrades the basic katas of bai laihu xiao. Most of them did not have the mindset to conquer it, but two of them had managed to make the bits of iron and tin that he provided wiggle a bit. He took to training them in his arts, and they helped him out, to his surprise, by fashioning a rudimentary hearing horn for his missing ear.

The horn was long gone now. He had lost it during a fight during the long advance from the Worm-Scar to the rim. He had needed a weapon, and so he had shaped the steel horn into a series of razor edged darts. The Pit-monsters' eyes were vulnerable enough.

Now he was once more being called up. With the death of faith in this area, inexplicable in the presence of the Worm, his unit was being called on more and more. Most of them resorted to blades and magic, but Xiao had a skill that made a huge difference in the field. Somewhere the source of this faith-death would be found, and he suspected he might be called to take part. No other master of bai laihu xiao, that he knew of, could command the Pit-metal, and whatever caused this wave of Divine-weakness was, if not made of fuligin, surely guarded by it.

The call came.

His unit moved on foot, but they moved swiftly. The fight was not far, and as soon as they engaged, Xiao lost himself to the dance. Graceful and sweeping, his movements drew the fuligin metal blades and shields and armor away from the Harkanian forces and into the air around him. In a blur, they became ribbons of death, slashing and tearing the enemy with their own weapons. His unit gave him room to fight, focusing outside the range of his attacks. He rarely needed back up.

At the corner of his mind, he felt it. Something huge loomed up nearby, but in the fog of war, it remained unclear. Slowing his dance, he brought the wall of baal-steel to a humming orbit around himself and focused on this new threat.

And then the fuligin shields around him fell. Terror gripped him. His mind screamed in protest. His body failed him. His serenity in the midst of chaos fled. Before him was the King.

Once, twice, the King's sword fell, killing the sergeant and a skilled killer that served with Xiao. That loss snapped him out of the terror, or at least, enough so that he could fight. The King was a wall of fuligin metal; he was garbed in his own downfall. Xiao took the strongest stance he could and waited.

The King's hideous steed leapt before the Dabusenese warrior and roared. Xiao instinctively started to bow, and then his survival insticts kicked in. He rolled before the sword could strike him. Kipping up, he brought his legs around in a whirling kick. The movement would normally have ripped the plate and chain off of any opponent, but the King's panoply did not budge. A hideous rumble came from the towering menace, and Xiao realized the King was laughing. Aware enough to realize he had just seemingly kicked at thin air as far as the King could tell, Xiao ignored it and tried again, this time bringing his whole body into the dance.

There was a slight rattle as some of the links in the King's mail reacted. The King just watched; beneath his crowned helm, he seemed amused.

Xiao once more executed the white tiger's claw, the ancient art that drew the aether of metals into the qi of the living heart. Once more, he felt a slight pull, a fraction of his power landing upon the King's invincible array. A slight fraction, but enough. This time, the King realized what this little man was trying. With another laugh, he lunged forward, moving with the speed of inmortal rage, and brought down Godsbane. Xiao's last thought was of home...

...He had to rest sometime. At night, he rode raids into Allied camps, crushing their exhausted soldiers. During the day, he seemed to teleport from battle to battle with his cannibalistic Royal Guard in tow. But he was not always trackable, not always present. Faith returned to areas intermittently. He must be resting, Aleel'aqallah thought. It was possible he was letting his guard down, though she doubted it. Still, she had to find out.

The powers of the Tuth blade were strange. It remembered the many previous wielders, and from them, it gained many interesting abilities. One of them was the power to hone in on objects of value, and few things were worth more on this field than Harkan's own sword. The Iniseli Consequent similarly consulted powers from her ancestry, and using the two skills in conjunction, she began to focus in on his location. Slowly but surely, she tracked him through the course of several days.

His camp, it turned out, had no banners, no tents, no fortifications. He and his guard simply stopped, dismounted, and waited. Around noon, when the sun was highest, wherever they happened to be. They did not teleport; they simply moved with incredible speed. Aleel'aqallah had had to draw on the blade and her Consequence to keep up. She crept as close as she was able and watched. Harkan himself may or may not have slept; he sat, eyes open, and stared. This seemed to pass for rest for him. His guards did sleep, though, most of them, anyway. They took turns, a third sleeping each day. That left 40 active guards around the King at all times.

No poison she owned would kill these. The King did not seem to eat much, anyway, and she suspected he gained strength from fuligin itself. The desert kept him alive as much as The Pit did. A knife in the dark would not work; it was not dark and there were too many open eyes, the King's included. Esoteric means were limited. She had nothing as strong as the King. Her only option was retreat.

Slipping away in the broad daylight was not easy, but she was usually up to it. Today, however, she realized within moments something followed. A shadow fell over her as she carefully scrambled over rocky ground, and she looked up to see a winged member of the Royal Guard circling above. Damn. Her choices were to try to make a stand, try to hide, or try to outrun it. Drawing the speed of ancient Iniselis, she bolted.

She cleared a mile in a minute or so, but the flyer kept following, swooping low, then gliding up. Another mile passed and both gained speed. Another mile, and Aleel'aqallah sported with danger over the craggy ground. That's what she's waiting for.

Aleel'aqallah tumbled. Carefully, she rolled, making it look like she was hurt, making it look as if her leg had caught in the cracks. The Guard swooped down, and Aleel'aqallah drew her Obiefune-forged blade. The well timed blow knocked the Guard's talons aside and slashed deep into her chest. A spurt of fuligin blood caught Aleel'aqallah in the eyes, and she kicked hard to get away. Drawing sand from a satchel--pure, real sand--she dried her eyes and said a quiet prayer while the Guard struggled to stand. The cut was deep.

Then, the Guard shifted position, and her wings spread out as her arms woven the air. Aleel'aqallah felt the sword in her hands tug free and flow through the air. Bai laihu xiao. Where did she learn THAT?

Aleel'aqallah responded with her own martial art, drawing on ancient Iniseli masters. She did not control aether or magic or ashar; she simply struck with her bare hand. The blow, guided by intricate movements, hit with the force of a bullet, breaking the winged Guard's arm. The Tuth blade tumbled to the sands, too far away to be of use. The Guard hissed and lashed out, but Aleel'aqallah moved aside with ease, letting the energy of the strike pull the Guard off her feet. The Consequent then brought a foot down into the small of her enemy's back; the Guard recovered quickly, however, and used her great wings to batter the asssassin.

Rolling in the sand, Aleel'aqallah fought the pain and reached for a dagger. Coming up quickly, she slashed at the feathers, but the Guard was ready. She had turned and brought down her own foot, kicking the dagger away. She followed this with a punch that landed hard on Aleel'aqallah's face. The Iniseli felt her nose break and a tooth jar loose. Ignoring it, she returned the punch, this one to the Guard's gut. She saw the pain in fuligin eyes and knew she had scored. She followed this up with her elbow, which thanked the Guard for the broken nose. The Guard shook off the pain and opened her gaping maw, revealing fuligin fangs. Aleel'aqallah leapt back, dodging away from the impossibly sharp teeth. Kneeling, she grabbed a handful of her clean sand and waited, but the Guard didn't take the bait. She instead crouched and hissed.

The two circled.

A lunge here, a thrust there. A jab, a punch, a kick. They tested each other, slowly but surely, watching for an opening. Both bled. Both had incredible reserves. But the Guard's friends were closer, and Aleel'aqallah knew she had to find a way out. She took a chance. She pounced, a little too high, knowing full well the Guard would duck. Moving over the Guard with agility, she landed mere feet from her sword. Snatching it up, she spun in time. The Guard had used her wings to draw up a cloud of dust, but it wasn't enough to save her. She took the Tuth blade full in the heart...

...They felt the sweep of his power, but it held no sway.

The judges of Zurash marched over the sands of fuligin without pause. They had walked the entire length of the desert, and not once did they stop to rest. Once they reached the Rim, half went one way, half the other. Steadiily, they walked the circumference seeking ingress and battle. Carefully, they searched The Pit's edge. When the undead came, they balanced them with life and death. When the Harkanians came, they balanced them with Law and faith. With the Worms on their side now, they were greater still. Harkan's distant might did not yet hold power over them, even with his mantle on.

"Will he come this way?" Esca-Kael asked. In the old language, her name meant Queen-King, and her authority over the others was absolute.

Ghannim-Ghuannadh-Urrh responded, "No. He is not interested in us. His attentions are on The Queen."

"And Kyel Ennasrion," answered Jau-Iurlh-Mauhaad.

"And he believes us powerless," said Puaundur-Urrh-Themauk.

Esca-Kael paused, watched the distant battle, then turned back toward The Pit. "Then let us continue seeking the ingress..."

...The tunnel was shallow. They could go no deeper than about ten feet before the protections of The Pit were activated, so they kept things shallow. Khennarha had been making tunnels since First Shem, but this was the hardest he'd ever built. Fuligin fought him every step of the way, and the stress of it was taxing. He stopped to take a breath while the soldiers behind him worked to shore up what he had crafted. It was unnecessary, of course. Since the transformation, he instinctually crafted perfect tunnels. But these were old habits ingrained in dwarves, gnomes, and chthonians. A new tunnel was untrustworthy, especially one under sand.

The ground above rumbled, but Khennarha paid no heed even as his soldiers braced themselves. The tunnel would hold. He listened instead to the timbre of the world's vibrations. Cavalry. Very, very heavy cavalry. Pit-monsters, most likely, ridden by giants.

"Let's follow," he said. The soldiers of the Eighth Army agreed readily, and Khennarha pushed onward, looping around, down a little, up a little, back toward the rumble. He moved swiftly through the stone and earth, despite the difficulties of breaking fuligin rock. The others placed fewer braces as they moved, but it didn't matter. He was now moving up steadily, and sand was beginning to pour through. Soon, he was just under the surface, moving like a sandworm.

And then he burst forth, erupting with stone and sand in every direction. The shrapnel bounced harmlessly off fuligin plate and hide, and the great annelidan khardantal'has grasped the legs of a huge panthroid Pit-monster as he leapt. The maneuver proved fruitless. His momentum failed him as a huge, fuligin-gauntleted fist grabbed him. Lifting the large worm-like Aeonian up easily, Harkan the Black breathed a heavy hiss. Then, he squeezed, and Khennarha's form crumbled...

...She stalked through the battlefield. Around her, men and women fought with sword and shield, bow and gun, but she was a hunter who fought with fang and claw. She batted away Pit-monsters and ignored the Harkanian darts that struck her. At 30' in height, she was hardly concerned with their little barbs. Ewah, Cougar Manifest, sought bigger prey. he dreaded little king rode a beast that was almost big enough to worry about. Certainly, he and the beast had speed, cunning, strength. He would make a formidable opponent.

She idly swatted a Royal Guardsman away, noting with satisfaction that he hit the ground and did not get back up. A growl sent a few minor Harkanians fleeing her path. A quick snap and fling sent a Pit-monster hurling into the enemy ranks far away. And then, then she was upon him.

The King turned and said something in his own tongue. His Guards stepped aside, letting Ewah through. The King's mount backed slightly, noting her size. The two squared off, and then Ewah pounced. Many, many tons of muscle, bone, and rage landed upon the King, but he stood his ground, using one arm to hold back razor sharp fangs. His mount collapsed beneath them, but he ignored it, simply standing up and thrusting with his massive blade. The sword ran deep into Ewah's maw, and she snapped her teeth around it, tasting flesh and fuligin steel as she did. She pulled back, jerking the King's arm forward. She knew she had pulled it out of socket, but the flesh did not tear. He used his free arm to grab at her face, and with a powerful shove, he tore his own arm free.

She swallowed, letting the sword slide down her throat. It scraped a bit, but it did not harm her.

The King, his arm ragged and bleeding, was undaunted. He reached up, made sure his helmet was on tight, knelt, then jumped. Springing almost vertically, he rose up before Ewah's eyes, and she responded with a swipe of her claws. He grabbed her massive paw and held tight, and she roared and slammed him into the ground. With a jerk, he wrenched her right foreleg painfully, and she snapped her fangs at him. He kicked, shoved, and rolled loose, and she swung her other claw, batting him down. Again, he rolled, and this time, he came up and charged.

He again jumped, this time forward, hitting her with his density, knocking her back in a tackle. The two rolled over Harkanian and Allied forces alike, crushing and killing indiscriminately as they wrestled. Eventually, Harkan forced Ewah onto her back and jumped onto her belly. She brought up her rear claws and tried to rake him off, but he dodged, then placed both hands, palms down, over her stomach.

The sword responded. Ripping her entrails with it, it burst from her insides and back into Harkan's hands. Her shriek filled the air for a hundred miles around as she panicked, clawing desperately at the Pit-King. The blows would have slain behemoths, but he simply batted them back with his sword, drenched in her guts. He thrust it downward, ripping another hole in her before she rolled, throwing him. Her blood gushing out in a flood, she staggered and fought, claw and fang, ripping into the King as best she could as he strength left her. Each blow she landed was met with one of his own, and soon, the cold and the dark over took her...

...In fair summer, long ago, he came to her with flower and wine, dewdrop and honeyed cakes.

She was not new to being Queen then, but new to this world. He was the son of a powerful miro, a handsome sidhe lord who was certain to be one of this world's mightiest fey. The Queen liked him well enough, and his simple gifts pleased her. He had a strong voice, and when he hunted, he always brought her back some small trophy. She lingered in the early days to enjoy his company. The Sleeping King knew nothing of her pleasures here, and this noble of the wood was charming and kind and gentle, despite his rough lifestyle. It was he who named her Esaria (a portmanteau of two old words meaning "beauty" and "majesty"), and she who named him Jerus (for the Divine that patroned her here).

The first decade had been pleasant, long rides in the country and invigorating, long nights in bed. He would sing to her ballads older than Shem, and she would tell him of the Summer Country and the hills of Tir Na Og. Long ago, on First Shem, the continent of Fasune had been their home, when gods had warred and mortals had striven for their place. As time passed, Esaria grew accustomed to this world and its vast network of powers, and Jerus longed to see other realms. They quarreled, and he, not incorrectly, ajudged that she was neglecting her duties elsewhere in the realms of Faerie. She banished him to the woods, and to her bed, she took many lovers. That was when he gained his antlers.

Eventually, she called him back to her bed, and when he came, she teased him mercilessly about the antlers. He responded in rage, storming out, taking up willful banishment. For two hundred years, they lived apart. He rule the wood, she the valley. Their reconciliation came when, after a long tour of the Dream Realm, she returned to find him in grief. He, too, had taken a lover, and she had been that year's first victim of the Teind.

That night, The Queen took the King to her bed, and their lovemaking was a gentle reunification. For many more years, they ruled in peace, side by side, on Shem and beyond, moving back and forth between Summer Country, Dream Realm, and the many worlds where fey dwelled in the Waking Realm.

It had been on this continent, The Queen reflected, that they had ruled. Before Starfall was Starfall, it was Fasune, and on First Shem, it had been the feyhome, until she drew it back to the Dream Realm to protect it from the Wars of the Gods. That had been when she had met the Jack of Hearts, when the King had fallen in love with that Lover Priestess that traveled with him. That had been an awakening for Jerus that showed him that love need not be limited so. They had been good years, and in the Dream Realm, they had indulged in many lovers...

...Kyel Ennasrion found The Queen fascinating.

She was a faerie, and yet, she was so much more. She was not a Manifest; or not one that he recognized. She was so much more than that. She was, as far as he could tell, the poioumenonic equivalent of a logos. She was not an archos, a living story. She was not a miro, a living dream. She was quintessential, the primary vision, a dream of something fundamental. Womanhood, femininity, and more. She was neither matron nor whore, neither virgin nor crone. Yet she was all of those things, but not as a person. As an energy. She was living narrative energy, embodied in a nexus of all poioumenonic powers.

He knew she could feel it coming. A major shift. A change. A fundamental change. She would not avoid it. She would ride to it bravely, with grace and majesty. It waited for her in Harkan's shadow.

The First Army clashed with the Pit-King's Royal Guard on the morning of Fysirym 9. The Queensguard proved one of the most dangerous foes the Harkanian Royal Guard had faced, even after they had feasted upon the Cougar Manifest's strength. The Queensguard each rode at the crest of a poioumenonic wave that brought them victories, and the Royal Guard were unprepared for that manner of assault.

Like The Queen, Harkan was a vortex of powers. He rode at the edge of a massive network of energies crafted for the explicit protection of his person, which in turn had been recently crafted--just before the war--to network with the protective wards that kept the Allied forces on the ground. He seemed invincible, even unto himself. He took risks that paid off, because his power was so intricately tied to the surroundings that it would require more power than any had to dislodge him.

Save, perhaps, The Queen. And she knew it. Ennasrion could see her silent command take effect. The forces parted, clearing a path between her and Harkan...

...During the Eschatonic Wars, Jerus had distinguished himself as a hero in the eyes of mortals. This altered his story, and soon, he became a separate entity in the fey courts. The Queen did not mind; it allowed her more time to pursue her other interests, including other lovers. The two sometimes traded lovers in those days, but eventually, they found each other again. In the Time Between, they toured other worlds. For some reason, Shem had been home for longer than most, and eventually, when the Divines reformed it, The Queen and Jerus returned.

He had taken meeting his counterparts well enough, in the past and during the Time Between. Exclusivity was a long forgotten idea. Besides, more than once, they came to a world where his counterpart had died, and he in turn absorbed those worlds, becoming King over many realms. This gave him even more duties to attend, and his story altered more. In time, he seemed a stranger to The Queen, an amalgam of many she had loved, but so different. He still enjoyed his hunting; he still wore his antlers. But he was more than Jerus.

They grew apart for a time. It was not until the chaos of the Manifestation Wars that he truly returned to Shem, and by then, he seemed to have settled into a pleasant confluence of Kings. Besides her first husband, Jerus might well have grown to be her favorite. Certainly her favorite in a long time, since the stars were young and before the Rending. He had an open heart, a good nature, and a vitality to him. He was neither dour nor cruel. He could support her without seeking to overshadow, and he could serve in her absence if need be. Despite his changing, she once more found room for him in her heart...

...Her valet handed her something. To those watching below, it looked like he had handed over something small, but to Ennasrion's eyes, all of the glamours were revealed.

The valet had a spark of flux and paradox within, and Ennasrion knew him to be the trickster Robin Goodfellow. The object he handed over was not small, but invisible, the Obiefune-forged sword Unseen. The spark of paradox existed in it, too. Thus far, no Obiefune blade had been tested against Godsbane.

The Queen's gestures might have seemed strange to those who could not see the blade, but Ennasrion saw her raise the thin, razor sharp sword high and charge forward...

...During the Age of Mantles, the renaissance of the Seelie Nations meant the two of them, though they might wish it otherwise, spent more and more time apart, attending duties across the realms. The Queen perhaps saw him only a handful of times per year, and the business of the court meant that neither of them had much time for leisure. More and more, they sought their relaxation apart as well, given how rarely they both had free time when the other did. He went hunting quite a bit; she took to visiting distant parts of the realms. When the Age of Mantles ended, he thought they might have more time together, but she had taken up with a new lover, a much closer one than usual, on a distant world. He secluded himself in his hunting.

Eventually, Starfall happened, and the next War of the Gods on Shem occurred. During this upheaval, Lyrilla was formed and Tir Na Og shifted away from Fasune--now blasted to shreds and called Starfall. Esaria focused herself on the war, facing a Divine threat to her sovereignty. Jerus focused on running the Empire in those times. When it was over there came another period of bliss, when the two ruled together and shared a bed. For many centuries, they had been closer than ever, but time as it did pushed them apart as duties arose. The Fox Wars took her attentions while he focused on local politics. And then, the Red Master had arrived, and this new war...

...Their steeds rushed over the intervening space in seconds, and their swords came together with a ragged clang. At first, it seemed the Obiefune sword had survived. It was impossible for most observers to say, for The Queen's sword was aptly named. A second pass came as the two circled on their steeds, and their blades came together in a clash that proved the fuligin blade triumphant. The rasping clatter of breaking metal preceded the thin, impossible sword's appearance. The blade whirled off, bright white shrapnel slashing into the crowd, while the hilt remained in The Queen's hand.

Undeterred, she drew on her magical might. A bronze burst of light surrounded her, and lightning erupted in a torrent of light and heat, staving off his next attack. She followed this swiftly with a tapestry of raw dream energy, indigo and green light that she woven around herself, creating another barrier along with her exquisite empowered oneirium armor. Harkan arose from the scorched earth, smoke rising from him, the second steed dead in as many days. Enraged, he swung is blade, and The Queen reacted with another spell, this one matched with a cerulean aura, causing the sword to miss wide. She then seemed to split into three selves, each of which began to cast different spells.

Harkan whirled, swinging madly, disrupting the illusion of one of them. The Queen took advantage to send another spell his way, a black blast that send a wall of force over him, knocking him back and seeking to crush him. A gesture from him broke the spell's power, however, and before The Queen could send another, he swung and disrupted her second glamour. She managed another spell, a russet shimmer that brought with it a blade to her hands, a sword of strength and fey legend. She brought it up with skill and strength, but Harkan drew on more immediate sources. She proved too slow, and his blow was certain to bring her death.

And then the stag collided with the King.

Jerus, riding a massive fey stag with six sets of antlers, charged full tilt into the Pit-King, bringing to bear on him all the might of a hundred Faerie Kings. Wielding a lance cut from the World Tree itself, he sought to spear the Black Monarch through the heart. Instead, Harkan felt the lance through his shoulder, the antlers through his face and arms, and the weight of both fey king and stag atop him. They fell to the dust in a shower of bone and blood, and a moment later, Harkan twisted the antlers in his hands, snapping the stag's neck.

The Queen raised her sword again, moving to aid her husband. Harkan lashed out with Godsbane, in a single arc knocking The Queen back and bringing the sword around across Jerus's chest. The Queen screamed in rage, hurling herself at the Pit-King, bringing the fey sword down upon his already wounded shoulder. He roared, hurled her off, and staggered to his knees. In real pain for the first time since... since Starfall... he turned to flee. The faerie king stood up, bleeding, dying, and wielding the jagged remains of the World Tree lance. With the last of his strength, he cast the splintered shaft at Harkan's back. The Pit-King fell forward, the lance opening a deep wound in his side, but before any could react further, the Royal Guard pressed in and whisked him away, riding forth on swift Pit-monsters and snatching up their leader.

Jerus collapsed, and The Queen staggered to his side, weeping...

...The call of magic steadily drew her.

The spells The Queen cast were of enormous power, equal to the might Rindacsa felt now every day. Previously, she had only been vaguely aware of The Queen's magical skill, but witnessing it first hand, she knew it to be both impressive and primal. In the heat of battle, The Queen had not time to direct her energies effectively. Using her staff, Rindacsa had devised just the right set of spells, or so she hoped.

Azure magic would form the bonding base. Sienna magic would make up the most of the spell, but the vermilion Kizadhi spells would bolster its effectiveness in combat. Vesaritian magic would make it go straight to his Name, and Erewhonian and Cerulean magic would add layers of power and effectiveness, along with Wathite magic to make it even stronger. More than that should be unnecessary. If it failed to destroy him, more spheres would not be the solution. Her time with Nas--as a logos--had helped her think in terms of pure energy. She need not have an intended effect; with her power, she could just direct energy in its rawest forms.

With the Pit-King wounded, there was no better time. She took a horse to preserve her energy, and she rode toward the front. Behind her rode several vala'bran warriors and a few Iniselis who had taken up as her guards. She smiled to them and let them follow. They could keep off any distractions, if necessary. She rode behind the lines at first, then moved through them at just the right spot, letting her guards do most of the fighting. Coming to a small, short breach, she rushed through and then used one of her prepared enchantments to track Harkan. She needn't be too close, but the closer she got, the more power would hit him.

She managed to get much closer than expected. Her guards, nervous, had been asking her for over and hour to turn back, but she told them she was on a special mission. She came upon his actual tracks not long after that, and that made her nervous. She stopped, and then she began to draw the stored magic out, preparing the triggering spell. Azure glow, then sienna, then vermilion, then orange, then iridal and cerulean, then lead grey. The air thrummed with power, and her guards watched in awe as reality began to bend around her. The vala'bran with her wept at the beauty and might she drew in.

And then, the Royal Guard were upon them. The fight lasted long enough for the spell to cast, and the bright explosion of magical force rocked the world.

What the spell met, however, was unexpected. Instead of hitting the baal-black King's heart, the spell hit a wall of impenetrable energy, a vast, impossible matrix of Divinity corrupted into fuligin energy, of msawhat and curses and Names and souls and magic and poioumenon. The magical onslaught she subjected it to simply got absorbed, and then, Harkan arrived, Godsbane drawn, stronger than ever...

...Kyel Ennasrion watched his wife's spell, and he knew that what she cast was one of the strongest single spells ever cast on Shem. And he knew, too, it would not work. He reached out, ready to save her...

[Ennasrion manipulates energies to save Rindacsa]

[Harkan channels energies through Godsbane and aims them at Nas]

[Nas deflects the energies easily and lashes out at Harkan]

[The blast nearly kills the Pit-King, but Harkan manages to speak the blasphemous Names of the Gods of The Pit]

[The Names begin to make the entire Rim melt into a fuligin flood of molten metal, killing thousands]

[Ennasrion destroys Harkan once and for all and prevents The Pit from expanding]

...The reports flew in. Enemy lines were crumbling rapidly. Sweeping victories across the Rim. Thousands dead on both sides, but overwhelmingly since Harkan's death, it was the Grey and Fuligin armies in defeat. The Grey were rallying in pockets, but without Harkan's dominance, the Harkanians were breaking their alliance quickly. They didn't much like the undead either. It wouldn't become a matter of Allied and Fuligin against the Grey. Ghef'fhardim had given strict orders on that point. Anyone, anyone violating it would be brought up on charges. With the tacit approval of The Queen and Ennasrion, he knew he could back that up.

He turned to Maradir, "Is this what victory looks like?"

"We got them to The Pit. Victory rests in their hands now," the old fey replied.

The worm marshal sighed, and Maradir nodded. "You want to go down there with them."

"Too much to do up here," he responded. "I can't abandon my armies in hostile territory."

Maradir said, "It's odd to fight so hard to get here, then organize a retreat."

"All of this as cover for what amounts to an assassination," Ghef'fhardim said.

"It would not be the first such war," the general responded. "But you and I both know it was more than that."

Ghef'fhardim glanced at the activity of the camp, then back to Maradir. Watching the gathering of the dead, he sighed again. "Let's hope Mother Shem is grateful after all of this..."

1. Vignettes of Victory - 7 tokens, 1 per (any loose ends)
   1. Kei - Enemy survivors surrendering.
   2. Benjesus - A surviving death priest holds a service for those lost.
   3. Billy - Edela personally sees to the execution of the spy that nearly cost them the battle. Spymasters gather and ask questions.

...Mollin cringed.

The men and women gathered to watch were almost all known to him, but fortunately, he had not the leisure or reason to expose them. Ultimately, the why of his actions was obscured, but evidence suggested it was a matter of slaving debts. Edela did not care. He had betrayed the Seelie Empire, and for any reason at all, this meant death. She looked to the others gathered and nodded. They nodded in return. Nothing needed to be said; the apology in endangering them came in the form of what came next:

Edela stepped forward, walked behind Mollin, and wrapped a steel cable around his neck. The touch of it burrned Edela's hands, but she held it tight around his throat until the life choked out of him. When she was satisfied that he was dead, she released and stepped back. Speaking a charm, she ignited his body into indigo flames. The traitor burned.

Around the stinking fire, the other spymasters gathered in silence. Haniqa of Tara'hin wrapped her robes about her tightly, seeking to stave off the stench. Vessera of Evernorth gave no sign of discomfort, nor would she if she felt any. Ansley Mac Boon sat back a few paces, watching quietly. Fhedek'khim of the Iniseli slithered closer. Tobu of Obusingye, Aramek the Guardian, Lilette of Galdun, Lucrezia of Talune, Arjuna of Vimala, Bannat of Malhuin, Lucas Tove, Eneg of Tohoniuk, Ji'im of Fano, Marquim of Jenil, Tso-lung of Unbul, Itrius of Maraddon, She Who Watches Beneath of Stonedelve, Danikrim'karannos of Dunmarsh, Ari Riverkin, Pol Hyrase, Handsome Sam... To greater or lesser degrees, these were the master information gatherers in their ranks. Their best agents stood attendance with them, and most of these, Edela could not name, nor would she recognize them after this meeting, she knew.

"Well, we are gathered," Edela said. "Perhaps we should have the debriefing now."

Ji'im smiled, slightly, and his or her face (Edela had her guesses) rippled. "We shall coordinate reports, yes." His accent was a put-on, clearly fake, but crafted to mask his true voice, and crafted well.

"What have we discovered, truly, that we did not know before?" Aramek deamnded. The others ignored his gruff tone, for it was not masking his intention to hide as much as he could.

"Much. We learned much in the abandoned temple, and much more in the ranks of Fuligin," She Who Watches Beneath responded.

Lucas Tove said, "Less so from the Grey, but in a way, there was information to be gathered there."

Handsome Sam nodded, her grizzled old face creasing as she spoke, "I shall start. We learned that Lilith stole the Name of the World."

Bannat nodded, "Yes. And that she birthed the Worms of Law with the Arbiter."

"And that she had knowledge of Echidna that the Bone-Champion did not," Arjuna said.

Eneg said, "We learned that the Gods of The Pit are being used to fuel the power of The Pit."

Itrius said, "And that Harkan was a Kearin lord before Starfall."

Lucrezia said, "We knew that before."

"Well, it was confirmed here," Tso-lung replied, smoothing over the wrinkle.

"We learned that the Bash Tchelik King of Kael'Ras was raised as an echo," said Marquim.

"We verified that all echoes serving the enemy thus far came from the Age of Legends," Ari Riverkin put in.

"And that the World Tree is still actively fighting The Pit," Fhedek'khim said. "With some connection to the Red Master."

Vessera said, "We learned that Harkan learned how to wield energies not long before we approached."

"As a response to the logos," Danikrim'karannos said. "We suspect."

Haniqa nodded, "Did anyone find out how he learned it?"

A nameless agent from an agency Edela could not identify said, "From the Champion of Bones, or rather, the undead Arbiter via the Champion of Bones."

"Is that proven?" Edela asked.

The nameless agent said, "Verified through accepted interrogation tactics."

Edela nodded, then began her next fact...

...The bodies burned in a massive pyre. Around them, drinks were flowing. Paul sat and watched. He'd seen too much loss to celebrate such a victory, and he knew too well that it wasn't over, even if his part was done. He sipped a bit of cold water; in the desert, it tasted better than the best elven wine. He closed his eyes, letting the sounds of celebration lull him.

He came awake not long after to a sudden embrace. Instinctually, he reached for his Staff, but as his mind became alert, a soft, familiar aroma alerted him to the fact that his "attacker" was Viollca. Her laugh smoothed his surprise, and he smiled and kissed her arms as they entangled him. For a quiet moment, the two let their affection glow between them. Viollca had changed little in the Ages since they met. Her hair still held its original color (a touch of grey here and there added some gravitas), and her face, when she smiled, made her look like a twentysomething. Without a smile, she seemed ageless, but a little older. Power emanated from her; as an archmage, she always seemed to draw in the world around her. Something about that much magical power in a soul left a mark.

"Matrim and Emily snuck into their tent when no one was looking," Viollca whispered.

Paul nodded, watching her closely, "It's been a long war. They need rest."

"Oh, yes. And I think you might have exerted yourself a bit, too," she replied, smiling impishly.

"I was just appreciating the lights," he said.

Viollca pulled him closer, "I think you need some rest."

"I don't feel that ti--" he cut off as she kissed him. As she paused for breath, he said, "You know, I could do with some rest..."

...The pyre was the size of a castle.

Ewah, the Cougar Manifest, burned. They had had to get dragons to set her ablaze, but she burned. It would have been nearly impossible to carry her back; her ashes would be distributed among the soldiers of Tohoniuk. Tecumseh watched the flames, and inwardly, he raged.

He said a silent prayer not to his own gods, but to his friend, "Poacher, if you watch, if you listen, heed me. Such wars are a waste. There is better we can accomplish, with guile and strength, than with butchery."

He got no reply; he never did. Not directly. But months later, when they hunted together, she would reference his thoughts. They would speak of strategy and plans, and he would come away with insights. She would perhaps gain something as well--he never was certain.

But he knew this: if she had been riding here, even she would have found this blasphemous foe distasteful...

1. 1. Dani and JT - The scene of a field hospital trying to evacuate remaining patients.
   2. Ian - Prax tends blossoms of the World Tree that somehow survive in the fuligin fields.
   3. Nathan - Gerrick and Ansley offer Tam Lin a home in Carterhaugh, Innesmoor, and the two Mudpies get back together with the party.
   4. Billy - Cork quietly picks over the corpses on the field, unnoticed by others, picking up loot.

...He ducked and roughed the body, looking for something.

He rifled through pouches, pockets, and belts. Small bits of jewelry vanished into his pockets, coins, papers, odd artifacts slipped out of dead hands and bags, into his idly nimble fingers. But they weren't what he was looking for. Fuligin knives, spearheads, and small, sharp objects were what he sought. Many, many of them.

Cork had waited, perhaps too long, to start gathering. It would have been inconvenient to pick them up and carry them for miles, but now, he had a need. Spikes. Something sharp enough to jab into the rock wall.

They had a long, dark climb ahead of them...

...His mind flickered through the two heroes'. The judge was what she seemed, but the demonslayer was certainly an echo. See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil smiled at the knowledge, but said nothing. He simply watched as they approached the edge of the Rim.

"M'lady, are you certain this is the path?" Alan Caer asked.

Na'Amah looked down the treacherous steep, "I can sense His presence. This is the way he was drawn in."

"Then so be it. We shall continue to follow your faith," the paladin answered.

"I can be of some service," the Cultist sent into their minds. Both of them turned in surprise.

"I apologize for the intrusion. I have been seeking a way in. I feel I can be useful to you," he projected.

Na'Amah considered him, and he knew she was using her faith to analyze him. He did not flinch. She frowned, then turned to Alan. "I know you won't like it, but he's the Balance I spoke of..."

...The four women stood on the edge.

sykri held her rat, Unati, in her arms. Her senses were entirely based on emotional resonance, and therefore, she did not need to look at him. She simply expressed through empathic channels her command. He leapt down, then scurried off toward a safe wagon. He would not be useful in The Pit. Beside her, Polyhymnia held tightly the sword she had captured from the grey saint. It emanated the certainty of death, and sykri knew that its power was great in her comrades hands. Maagu knelt and prayed, seeking a final piece of guidance. Her faith was always searching, angry, and on the verge of desperation, but it was deep and profound. That left, Tour, the youngest, the girl-child whose power surpassed that of all the others. Her command of the mysteries of the Gates was such that she resonated in sykri's senses as utter, complete calm.

Together, they bore the Name. If the Elf Incarnate or the Silver Messiah failed, they would succeed. The undead abominations would not be allowed to continue...

1. Gathering of the Heroes (no tokens, resume normal play as Heroes gather and begin to descend into The Pit)

Notes:

1. Samuel Jericho. That is /still/ all, no matter what anyone says.