Planning a Fall

Grey Horde stood on her flagship, the floating island that overlooked the massive dome in the distance. They were in a valley, surrounded by mountains that were somehow dwarfed by the dome itself. The green grass and the forests that used to be here were no longer present. Now, her army spread beneath her, surrounding the dome, ready and waiting. They had scoured the ground, removed the forests, built up defenses and traps, rearranged the entire territory in preparation. This entire place was a kill zone, unlike anything that Grey Horde had ever seen before. Decades of preparation, some done by others, before it was decided that she would be the one to handle this dome, but still deadly.

She looked over the valley, seeing the great towers raised out of the ground with mounted weapons on them, each capable of flattening entire cities. They had six of them, and each weapon was the newest and most advanced piece of technology available to them, costing more than entire factions. They didn’t expect them to survive the day. A fleet of warships was above the dome, all ready as well.

The monster inside was asleep, it had been since before they had first arrived here. She knew better than to hope that it would remain so. It was a monster from the tales of the demasi race. Helshou, they called it, the Mountain God. It wandered the great wastes of their world in ancient times, scorched and harried by the cruel sun above the world. It cursed the sun, and then stomped across the world, creating mountains so that it could have shade.

It was certainly massive enough that she could see it do that. It slept on its side, curled up with all six of its limbs close to its chest. It was covered in rough brown hide, thick and if the analysts were right very resistant to almost everything. Based on the stories, they assumed that it disliked sunlight, which was why it was approaching midday. Its head was squat and wide, and from what they could see there was little to fear in terms of natural weapons, aside from its massive size and its tail which was long, thick and had a large ball-like tip. Its legs ended in hoof-like feet, but were wide and stocky.

What they feared was that it would be able to move the stone, to shape it with its mind. Some of the old stories were conflicting, so they could not be certain of it. The stories also said that it was as tough as the mountains, which was why they had brought enough firepower to turn several mountain ranges to dust.

They had prepared as much as they could, and now they would see how much what they had done was worth.

“My Queen?” Trklak spoke from next to her.

She turned to face him, then nodded her head, there was no point in delaying. “Give the word.”

Trklak walked over to their communication hub and relaid her orders as she took to the sky, flying above her forces to look down on the field of battle.

It didn’t take long for it to start.

Warning! The 4th, Dome of Reckoning - Dome of the Helshou, the Mountain God, has been opened! The Mountain God wakes. Defeat the Helshou and stop his rampage.

Fight, prevail, prove that you are worthy.

Defeating the Helshou will bring new opportunities and rewards for those brave enough.

Grey Horde saw the Dome start to open, the protective sphere falling away. For a moment she thought that she saw her lone soldier down below, but knew that it was impossible. The soldier with the task of opening the Dome had probably already teleported away.

A loud growl filled the air even before the dome fully disappeared, and she saw the monster inside moving, waking up.

She gave no orders, her announcement to start was simple. She burned through her perks, bolstering her army around her. The dome winked out, and fire rained down on the monster inside. The six towers fired; beams of iridescent light cut across the valley from different corners nestled in the mountains. The world screamed at their passage, the power of them bent the Essences in their wake sending shockwaves that could be observed with the naked eye.

They struck and the world turned bright. Her fleets opened fire, her land forces joined in too. Long range weaponry of every kind joined the fray, smashing into the monster, hoping to end the battle before it started.

The center of the valley, where the dome used to be, was obscured by the light, by dust and fire and explosions. She couldn’t see, nor could she sense anything from the disruption caused by the weapons fire. But she knew that they had failed their opening strike. Her |Perfect Threat Assessment: My Sense, True Worth| was screaming inside her head.

The ground rumbled, then heaved. The cracks spread from the center of the chaos and leapt through the earth, opening gaps. She saw one stretching toward her troops, arranged on the hills far away from the dome. Geomancers acted, the ground shaking beneath them and rolling waves of earth heading in the direction of the crack, then smashing together in a display that ruptured the ground high into the air, sending rock and dirt so far into the sky that the shields of her warships flared.

The fire coming in never halted, aside from the six towers which were recharging.

A growl echoed, louder even than all the attacks her army caused. Then something ripped out of from the plume of dust and light. A tail as long as a river rose high into the air, and following it came… small mountains. Shards of stone elongated so that they resembled long arrowheads. They floated around the tail, and then the tail smashed through the air. The wind picked up and sent the dust spreading over the valley, while the dozen shards ripped through the air, spreading into a poorly targeted wave. It didn’t matter, one of the shards smashed into a tower, dismantling it completely and sending an explosion that smashed the side of a mountain behind it, causing an avalanche to start.

The others smashed all over the ground, cratering the earth, sending waves of debris that washed over her troops and killing thousands in the process. She felt her power drop as they died, and saw the monster’s head rise above the dust, it roared and then stomped.

You Will Not Die. Five minutes of grace, though it wouldn’t matter for some, those buried beneath tones of the earth.

The ground beneath the monster rippled, sending waves in all directions. Her people’s defensive formations flared, protecting them. Those that managed to survive the attack, many formations failed, and she saw a company get buried beneath a wave of earth.

The monster was bleeding, she could see it. Its hide was open in places, and one of its eyes shut closed. They had hurt it, it just wasn’t enough. The attacks kept coming, hitting its hide, some scratching it, others barely doing anything. They had hit it with enough power to kill anything else in the world. And it was still not enough. The beams hit from above, as the fleet continued its attack.

Its tail hit the ground, and shards of stone pierced the ground, then floated above.

Grey Horde moved. Like a falling star, she dropped from above. With True Link — Borrowed Power she reached out to her Champion, to Trklak, and pulled his power to her—For a Moment; You and I.

It was a challenge, a power worthy of a Champion. The outside world fell away, leaving only her and the dome monster in a realm of gray. It was confused, she saw it, in the way that it slowed for a moment before seeing her fall.

War Titan—she grew in size.

True Link—Hive; Unstoppable Monarch—her stats soared.

She started burning through her powers as she fell, as the monster launched its stone shards in her direction.

Grand Queen’s Shield—stopped two of the shards, before it shattered. She dashed through the air, evading others.

Earth Shatter exploded in front of her, a wave that hit the monster and made it stumble. They had suspected that its body was made from Earth-related Essence. Following it came Falling Mountain, a pillar of kinetic energy that hit it in the back and drove it down, barely.

Then she was there, with a [Might of an Empire] and [True Shatter Power] she hit its head, made it bow.

She followed that up by beating her wings with [Flight of War]. She placed both hands on the side of its head, just beneath its wounded eye, then pulled from deep within herself.

—Shatter All—

Kael watched from the distance as the dome was opened. He watched as the Triumphant Queen’s armies opened fire on it. The display of power was such that Kael knew of nothing that could survive it. Yet the Dome monster did.

“Powerful monster,” Berion whispered.

Kael nodded. The Wior—Vhrom—Les runes glowed above them, protecting them from all sight or senses. He could feel the threads of his and two other souls in it. He had taught his people what he knew of the Runes, but none had taken to it more than Berion had. He was… he was getting better at it than Kael was. And his soul… Kael could feel the might of it as it held their rune construct together.

“They wounded it,” Maya Rebadotter added.

Kael turned his attention back to the fight, and saw that yes, Maya was right. But the damage was superficial, they had barely scratched it. If that opening salvo when they had unleashed everything that they could hadn’t killed it…

“If only we had found the Domes before them,” Kael said.

He was angry, yes. Fate always seemed to laugh in his face. What could’ve this monster done if it had been released without a prepared army waiting for it? If no one knew where it was or where it was headed. He could almost imagine the monster arriving at one of the core cities with little warning, when they had no time to prepare.

That was what the Domes were supposed to be, great calamities, and challenges. Kael had uprooted that when he opened the dome ahead of time and shown everyone their danger.

He looked now at the Grey Horde, seeing her glowing brightly above all the carnage below. He saw her dive and felt only hatred for her and her ilk. Those who stood above them all, corrupt, tyrants. Oh, how he wanted to find another way, but there was none. Innocents would die, but he was looking for the future, for the infinite number of those that were yet to come.

They… these warlords from a bygone age, monsters of the first Iterations, immortals who would never die and would keep everything from progressing. He had seen it over and over again.

The horrors of the grand factories of the Exalted Empire who preached enlightenment with their peace and order. Yet forbade all beliefs and paths aside from their Road of Technology. The Sects and their twisted honor, their reliance on warlords. The kingdoms and their castes. It all had to go. Only a full restart of the world would fix it. He had to wipe the slate clean, cut down all who thought like they did, and all those who learned from them. Burn the forest down to let something new grow in its place.

The world constricted in the distance, and Kael saw the monster disappear alongside the Grey Horde.

“What was that?” He asked.

Berion tilted his head. “A spatial event, a power,” he answered.

Maya pulled out a device, her eyes blurred as if she was reading something quickly. “Found it, perk of her Champion, Trklak. For a Moment; You and I. Pulls the user and target into a separate realm.”

Kael grimaced. “Make a note that it was used.”

Maya did as he asked.

For a few moments there was peace, then noise returned to the world. The space in the center of the valley shook then rippled. The monster appeared, roaring in a broken voice that shook Kael to the core. Half of its head was gone, and the rest reduced to cracked bone and ripped hide. Two of its legs on one side were gone too, a deep wound showed its insides.

“Shatter All,” Berion said. “It had to be.”

“It survived it,” Kael said in surprise.

The army around the monster attacked immediately. Kael couldn’t see where the Grey Horde was, but he doubted that she was dead. Then, an army appeared in the air, teleported there from someplace else. All of them were capable of flight, and armed with gear that shone with power. Immediately they started firing down on their wounded target. The monster’s wail rose, and its tail hit the ground, the valley split in half. The mountain range cracked and mountains started to fall.

Kael wrote a rune, and a sphere of air solidified around them, then picked them up into the air as the ground beneath them cracked and started to flow like a river. The valley was getting buried. Two of their attack towers had mountains dropped on them, and the plumes of moving earth had even exploded into the air. Kael saw dozens of ships falling from the damage.

The remaining towers fired, their bright beams that reminded him of the Reaction Engine hit the monster, through the wounds in its side, burning through and cutting into it.

“It’s done,” Ber said, and Kael knew that he was right.

“She used Shatter All,” Maya said. “Perhaps we could…”

Kael shook his head. “She’s not a good target,” he wished that they could do something, but he knew that it would be better to hold to their plan. “But,” he added. “Make a note of it anyway.”

They watched in silence as the army continued firing long after the monster was dead, reducing the entire valley and mountain range to rubble.

“How many do you think she lost?” Berion asked.

Kael blinked. “Why?”

“They follow her, they love her,” Ber started. “They are willing to die for her. They are here because they think that they are protecting the world.”

“Yes,” Kael nodded. “But the world that they are protecting is theirs. Not ours. Their world is the one where a child with a talent like yours can be made a slave and bound with contracts. Where just because someone has power it means that they can do whatever they want, force people to serve all their depravities just because they find someone attractive,” he glanced at Maya, saw her eyes harden. “Where they can take your children and turn them into whatever they want, just because they rule. Where trying to follow your own path is equal to treason. Where,” Kael turned to the army in the distance. “You get exiled for the simple crime of not loving your monarch.”

Berion took a deep breath, then nodded.

“Take us home,” Kael said. They had a lot of work to do.

Grey Horde walked through the buried valley, looking at the carnage. The monsters blood flowed like river, spilling over the rocks that had buried her troops. Her perk had long since run out, and they had started pulling dead bodies out of the ground.

Sometimes, she wondered why they followed her when all she brought them was war and death.

She shook her head, dismissing the unwanted thoughts. She was better than most. And they had done something good here, their deaths were not in vain. Another of the Domes was defeated, and they were a step closer to eliminating their threat.

Grey Horde remained among the dead long into the night, until the last body of her soldiers was retrieved. Only then did she set for her home.