cataclysm - vi
The obsidian throne of the Citadel Condescension stands empty, entombed within ancient walls and high ceilings of dark granite. For the first time in two thousand years, the Empress has left her Empire.
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Innumerable miles away, an army moves as one through a broad yet treacherous passage, eyes and weapons glinting with every movement, stalagmites illuminated by the soft, unworldly glow of hovering magic orbs. A small faction of a small regiment near the middle hums the tune of A Girl Worth Fighting For from Mulan under their breaths. Bringing up the rear, thirty not-quite-creatures of magic and steel clamber magnificently through the tunnel, legs drawn close to better fit within the walls. At the front, the Empress herself walks regally into the dark, her silver diadem glimmering in the deep fuchsia light of her own conjured orb, her daughter at her right and Margrave Dualscar at her left.
By the end of the four-hour walk, the walls of the passage resound with drinking songs and the like.
The Empress, naturally, is the first to step out into the cold night air. She looks around, breathes in deeply, savors the taste of the sky; yes, she’s back, this is the freedom she’s spent so long biding her time for, and she will raze cities to secure it for her people. Her army trickles out of the cave slowly; soldiers and medics look up at the moon with wondering eyes and relish the feeling of fresh air in their lungs, voices disappearing into the clear night. It takes quite some time for the army to gather in the grassy expanse that starts not far to the west of the cave. They assemble in marching formation as directed, murmuring softly to each other about the surface and the sky.
At last, the Empress gently squeezes her daughter’s hand before letting go and rising up to hover twenty feet or so above the ground, at the front of the assembled forces. A wave of silence spreads immediately through the ranks.
She points with an open hand still to the west. Far in the distance, at the top of a hill, the silhouette of a castle blocks out a patch of stars. “Tonight,” she says, her calm voice ringing through the air, “we march. Tomorrow, we reclaim what has been taken from us, and show the humans what comes to those who sympathize with elves.”
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And they march. It takes three hours of wordless motion for the drow army to reach the hill on which the castle sits, their Empress flying high above them, moving softly past sleeping villages to settle in, quiet as the night. At the base of the hill, the soldiers spread out to make room for the metal monsters. The dronegorgs settle down encircling the hill, driving the pointed tips of their legs like stakes into the earth as steel panels fold out from the legs and click into each other, forming huge steel shelters. The soldiers file into the domegorgs, hefting rucksacks over their shoulders.
High above them, the Empress weaves an enchantment, her eyes and the inscriptions on her trident glowing as she incants, calling down her own power and the power of her gods. Her diadem shimmers and thrums with magic, and slowly the circle she’s drawn around the hill begins to glow as well. As she continues to incant, a deep fuchsia plane grows from the circle, seeming to breathe and build upon itself. A few drow soldiers outside the encampments stop and stare at the ethereal walls rising around them, but the Empress is distracted by nothing. She weaves the fabric of the dome with her magic, neither pausing nor blinking until at last the circle is closed on top and the whole dome pulses with dark magic, growing even stronger in its completion. At last, she seals it with a drop of blood that fizzles into the top of the dome and lowers herself down through the tingling sensation of the enchantment. Now, until she breaks the spell, no elven transportation circles will have any effect within the barrier. The only way out is through the one hundred thousand armed and bloodthirsty drow settled around the castle.
When the castle-dwellers awaken in the morning, the sky will be darkened and tinted unworldly fuchsia, and the world will never be the same.
