With the inlet to the bay closed, the situation had improved somewhat.

Yacob sat on the top of the inner seawall, covered in sweat and mopping at the blood from his eyes and nose. Vinny knelt next to him, offering a potion and fending off the aggressive crabs and critters, still trying to follow the call to Jemna.

Wali moved toward Sas’cha and Neferu. Bolts of lightning and slashing icy rain fell from the black cloud over the center of the bay. The localized storm was slowly shrinking. Clouds high above swirled and funneled downward, feeding the cluster of thick black clouds that was Gale, but it was not enough to keep the onslaught going forever.

In the center of the bay, directly under the flashing lightning, the tentacled maw of Jemna turned in the water. The shell side came up, and the creature began to descend below the waves. The lightning immediately stopped.

Wali watched as the herald known as Jemna sank below the waves, “We have got to get word to Guilfort of the danger they are in. Maybe we can get some help to fight the beast.”

Reiki stepped off the remains of her ship towards Wali, “I hope this works.” She said, saddened by the loss of her ship. She looked at Wali and Sas’cha. “I will stay here and assist these two, I cannot directly interfere, but I can help. Take this,” She pulled an ornate ring from one finger. “This is my mark and carries my word as the Captain of the Storm Dancer. My word carries weight. If you can find the mayor, he will at least listen.”

Wali nodded and summoned Tag. His mana was starting to run very dry now. The bird waited while Wali took a piece of paper from his Void Bag. He wrote a quick letter on it and slid the ring over the rolled parchment. He gave it to Tag and sent the Nighthawk owl over the waves toward the town.

He walked over to Yacob and Vinny. Yacob sat while Vinny stabbed any critter crawling over the seawall nearby. He was currently engaged with something that looked like a half-crab half-octopus the size of a pony. Vinny’s magically sharp sword flashed, and tentacles fell away. He lunged and impaled it on the blade. He retreated toward Wali and Yacob.

He waved Reiki over, “I have an idea forming, but it will be dangerous, and no one will like it. We can’t save the city now, but maybe we can save as many people as possible.”

As he said that, Tag sent to him through their bond, “Something is moving under the water, something big.” He got an image of the tell-tale V-shaped wave of just that. Jemna was on the move.

Gale’s cloud body was gaining size once again, and Wali saw the elemental move the storm to pursue the herald. Tag was far faster than either of them.

Wali turned toward Yacob, Vinny, and Reiki. “I’ll get some help out here, but I need you to shore up that wall as much as you can. Make it strong. It needs to hold back an ocean for at least a day.”

They nodded, and Reiki said to Yacob, “You rest and observe. Follow my lead when you have some strength. Vinny, keep the beasts off of us.”

Wali said to Sas’cha, “Please help them. I need to meditate for some time.”

Sas’cha grinned and hopped off of Neferu. She took an area near the trio of Yacob, Reiki, and Wali. Wali sat down on a rock and dropped into meditation.

Wali directed Neferu, “Go and bother the herald. Do not attack it outright and kill as many sea creatures that surround it as possible.” The massive crocodilian swam off toward the city.

He felt for the nexus of power he knew was far below that water. A nexus of three ley lines had kept the obelisk fueled with power. He felt for that power now, and it was not hard to locate. He created a bridge to that nexus using the last bit of his personal mana.

It was like turning on a fire hose and trying to drink from it. The wash of power almost overwhelmed him. He quickly constructed spells to divert that power, some to his personal store, some to Gale, and the rest he used to shore up his mind and body. He was tired, nearing a level of exhaustion he had not felt for a long time.

He started feeling refreshed immediately. Tag notified him that the letter had been delivered. Wali hoped it was to a person with some responsibility. Tag had been instructed to find someone directing traffic, shouting orders, or the like among the soon-to-be refugees. Tag would keep overhead but soon had to fly away as the Gale cloud moved over the town.

Wali continued to pull in power as he constructed a spell in his mind, playing through scenarios and disliking all the options and ways forward he could think of. Only one solution swam around in the back of his head, which was not a good solution.

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Nearby Reiki held her hands in front of her, a ring of magical symbols floating around her as she began layering different spells. Yacob sat and meditated, trying to recover his mana as quickly as possible. Vinny and Sas’cha moved around the rocks, killing anything they could that was trying to get over the seawall.

Wali watched as Reiki’s spellwork began to take effect. The barricade of wood and stone they had already made became the base for an expanding wall of ice. The wall was first a thin sheet of ice covering the face of the barricade. Thousands of animals pressed in tight against it as they were pushed from behind. The ice formed over the wall and grew in thickness, each animal pressed against it was incorporated into the wall. She pulled the heat out of the water, draining it away and converting the heat into mana to fuel more of the spreading ice. Yacob watched in wonder as she used fire magic to create ice.

She split her concentration for a moment, “Now you do the same on the backside of the barricade. Make sure you push it all the way down. Fill every crack, crevice, and hole with ice.”

Yacob followed her lead, she was a master mage, and where she used finesse and practice, Yacob just reached into the water and began to pull out all of the heat. At first, it was difficult for him. The water did not want to give up the heat at first. When it did, it was slow. The changing state of water from liquid to solid was unlike anything Yacob could vaguely understand. He pulled the heat from an area of the water and let the water do the rest. He channeled the heat through his fire glyph and used that energy to fuel the pull of more heat.

Ice began to form around the temporary barrier. Growing in thickness, it started as a few inches and slowly spread.

On the ocean side of the seawall, the water was filled with sea life of all forms. A person could walk across the backs of the turtles, fish, and seals crowded out there. A few could walk or crawl across the land and were climbing the wall of rocks. Some tried to leap over the wall, but there was no space to get a ‘running start,’ and they were unsuccessful. Whales, giant squid, and other massive creatures massed against the seawall, shoving the small animals out of the way.

The efforts of Vinny and Sas’cha were nothing more than to allow space for the others to work their magic. They could in no way stop the tide of animals than they could the ocean’s tide.

Tag watched as Jemna breached the city. Guilfort was built from a thousand ships, boats, and barges. Each had been lashed together into one enormous flotilla. Connected by rope bridges, wooden walkways, and miles of rope, each piece moved separately from the others. The entire city floated on the surface of the water. Most of the inhabitants had fled the town itself in one of two ways. Those with them were spreading out across the bay's surface in small boats. They hugged the caldera’s wall, avoiding the localized unnatural storm. Others had fled up the crater’s wall into the buildings carved into the stone wall.

Jemna burst up through the edge of the town, wrecking a long flat barge and the home built on it. Where one tentacle came through the waves and flailed around, lightning struck down from Gale. The battle between the herald and the storm elemental was one of attrition. The lightning did little beyond annoy Jemna as it channeled the electricity into one of the thousands of sea creatures attached to its shell. Each lightning bolt would kill a few fish and weaken the gathering storm.

Neferu swam around under and behind the herald. Never going near enough for the tentacles to reach her. She crushed fish, rent squid asunder, crushed clams, and other crustaceans. She did her best to reduce the number of creatures collecting along the shell. The call of the herald had claimed everything within kilometers, and they all fought to get to Jemna. Each would approach, and one of the anemone tentacles would stick it to the shell of the herald—living armor made of a horde of sea creatures.

Wali was beginning to feel refreshed as the battle took place across the bay. He concentrated on constructing the spell he had in mind. It was a simple spell but one that needed many safeguards. He could not allow the spell to go out of control nor allow it to fail. The results would be catastrophic. He stood up and walked out to the water, his water walking spell still active from earlier in the day.

Wali walked a hundred feet offshore. Here the waves were rough, the chop caused by the lashing winds, and the battle across the bay was fierce. He first spun a bubble of power to calm the water. He used the tip of the spear as a stylus. He began to draw a circle in the air, the glowing tip of the spear making shimmering marks. Once the first was complete, he started a far more complex one inside the first. The first was a containment spell to keep magical power bound within.

The second circle was the spell he was regretting having to use but was a culmination of many weeks of practice and planning. A variation on a simple portal gate, this drew heavily on Wali’s now intimate knowledge of his own glyphs. The circle he drew was one to open a gateway to the Void itself. As Wali stepped out of the circle and began inspecting it, he noticed errors and corrections. He took the time to make those corrections to ensure the spell would not go awry. He then drew a third circle on the outside of the inner two.

Once everything was in readiness, he glanced across the bay to see Jemna lift a ship into the air and break it into two pieces. Gale was dwindling again. This may be the only way for them actually to fight the monstrous Jemna.

Wali triggered the activation of the central circle and then fed power into the inner circle after infusing it through his own Void glyph. A black rend in the very fabric of the world opened in the center of the circle. It tore at the eyes and the mind. Neither could accept that there was simply nothing there.

Wali pushed more power into the construct and then used his control over it to push it down into the water.