Hilda blinked as off to their left and overhead, a brilliant flash of light erupted and continued. Hilda turned to see a figure her Holy Sight revealed as Ashena Brightfeather, flying over a regiment of the Army of the Night. The extremely bright light was Krinna Fire emanating from a large mirrored shield bearing the symbol of Krinna and blasting down upon the army below a concentrated beam of Unlife-incinerating light. Clearly, Krinna’s archons had arrived on the planet in full force.
“Where are these avatars coming from, and where is their mana coming from?” Praelgeis demanded of Exador.
Exador shook his head. “They must be relaying the mana from somewhere else on Nysegard. Local runic gateways to their other fortresses. My guess would be that they are dropping archons to other fortresses they have. From those fortresses, they are then ferrying in combat-ready avatars.
“We have not encountered this much resistance since the Battle of Night’s Helm,” Daerth Tromlane hissed.
Praelgeis’s helm shook. “This is worse. Much worse. I do not recall ever seeing this many senior avatars. Ramses has noted that the winged saint with the Krinna Fire is Ashena Brightfeather, Prophetess of Nysegard. I have counted at least eighteen other avatars. At no point in history have the Forces of Light deployed this level of force.”
“And they come with a reborn Orcus,” Baba Smirt’ hissed. “With Orcus returned, he and the Siblings should be at each other’s throats, fighting each other! That was the Dark Apostle’s contingency plan should we fail to permanently slay Orcus.”
“How did this happen with no warning?” Praelgeis asked.
Exador kept his mouth closed. It happened with no warning because it had happened incredibly fast; a matter of quarter-months. Nothing happened that fast for immortals. These ventures took centuries, not months or quarter-months. He was not, however, going to reveal this information. The fact that he had been aware that Lenamare’s demon was suspected of being Orcus reborn, and not told them, would only aggravate his relationships with them.
“If we are going to have any hope of salvaging this fiasco, we are going to need to go big,” Baba Smert’ hissed. “Very big.”
“Hmm. Well, while you figure out what’s very big,” Exador said, watching Ashena cook untold numbers of troops, “might I suggest something that is modestly big, and unusual?”
“And what would that be?” Praelgeis asked.
“Fire, cold and lightning don’t do much to slow the D’Orcs down. I don’t know if you have it in your spellbooks — it was a surprise to me when the Council of Wizardry used it against me — but it would at least knock that flying torch out of the sky and keep the D’Orcs pinned down.”
“These are the days, my friend!” Darg-Krallnom shouted to his second-in-command, Ergda Doom Wraith.
“Hah!” Ergda shouted back. “It is good to be back home on Nysegard; I take great comfort in obliterating Unlife! I was sure we would never return to such simple pleasures!” she said, flicking the head off an alvaran zombie and into her mouth. “Candy!”
Darg-Krallnom grimaced. “I do not know how you can eat such junk food!”
“I haven’t had such delicacies in a very long time,” Ergda pointed out.
“Yes, but that stuff is literally rotten!” Darg-Krallnom complained.
“I prefer the term fermented; you know, as with glargh or sauerkraut!” Ergda replied and popped another zombie head into her mouth.
Darg-Krallnom splattered a small zombie squad and then turned his primary attention back to Ergda. “Notice how they’ve stopped with the lightning bolts?” he asked.
“Yeah, I guess they finally wised up!” Ergda said.
“They need to save their energy for their undying breaths when we finish them all off,” Darg-Krallnom joked.
“Hey, do you hear that whistling noise?” Ergda asked.
“Now that you mention it, yes. I think it’s coming from above us.” Darg-Krallnom looked up to see several fiery spheres coming through the clouds.
“Are those coming our way?” Ergda asked.
“Time to scramble!” Darg-Krallnom shouted, even as he saw one of the spheres moving directly towards him as if it had a mind of its own. “This is going to hurt!” he shouted seconds before the large meteor crashed into his head, driving him out of the sky, through the mushed zombie sludge and into the ground.
Tom smashed in the head of the giant, feathered, oriental dragon zombie, finally managing to crush its brain. Where are they coming up with this undead bestiary? Tom wondered. It was at this point he heard loud whistling noises coming from above the battlefield.
There was a meteor shower coming through the clouds at them. Crap! What are those liches up to now? It took but a moment for him to find out. One of the meteors seemed to chase Darg-Krallnom from his position before plowing into the D’Orc driving him down and into the ground. His commander was going to have a really bad headache from that one.
The burning light of Ashena’s Krinna Fire suddenly flared wildly all around the battlefield. Tom spun to see the prophetess knocked from the sky by another meteor. Tom looked up frantically to see another meteor, still pretty distant, coming directly for him.
He flew sideways, only to see the meteor swerve towards him as well. It was not immediate, momentum clearly applied, but it was coming, and fast. Okay, they’ve got curveballs? I’ve got a bat! Tom thought to himself. His stepfather had forced him to play Little League against his will, for two seasons. He had not been much of a hitter, but this was a big baseball and he had an even better bat.
He didn’t have time to really aim; he’d be lucky to hit it anywhere that was not the Citadel. He was out of time! He raised the Rod as if it were a bat and prepared to slide back at the last second, so he could hit it. He energized the Rod. Three… two… one — swing!
CRACK! went the meteor. It was not the Rod, that was shielded in an energy field. The meteor went left — technically a foul ball, but he was fine with that. Particularly since it plowed through a couple of vampire-led ghoul battalions.
Tom looked up at the sky. There were a lot more meteors coming. Either they came in swarms, or there were quite a few liches casting spells, at least if the spell worked like the ones in the RPGs. Time for some batting practice.
Tom flew towards the nearest oncoming meteor, not clear who it was going to. D’Orcs, it’s time to play ball! he shouted over his links to the local D’Orcs as he moved to intercept the meteor and knock it towards one of the Storm Lords’ command bunkers.
Tamarin! Tom reached out to the djinni, who was in the Citadel Command Center, serving as his communication link to Grob. Have the avatars pay attention to what I am doing to combat the meteors. We can turn this to our advantage!
Oooh! That looks like so much fun! Tamarin somehow managed to clap mentally. I will relay the information on!
CRACK! The meteor bounced off his Rod and right towards the command bunker. The commanders, a couple liches and some vampires, dove out of their bunker with a preternatural alacrity. Or at least the vampires did. Apparently liches, being as they were decomposing sacks of bone, were not quite as lithe as vampires.