They had a giant fishbowl with a very hostile and dangerous fish at the bottom. They couldn’t let the herald escape. That would be a disaster. The companions had to keep the icy plug whole and somehow defeat the monster at the bottom of the fishbowl.

Gale spun around above the fish bowl, a dangerous-looking black cloud. Lighting flashed through the clouds, and Wali wondered about being able to reign in the elemental when the time came.

As dawn broke, the first refugees were loaded onto the ship and soon would be off. The smell of dead fish was almost overpowering. The corpses of an amazing amount of sea life cluttered the oceanside of the seawall. Wali sat and considered what to do. Guilfort was destroyed, and those trapped on the cliffside buildings would remain so until the caldera could be refilled.

Already Wali had been forced to take their floating homes away. Their lives had been shattered by the heralds and their response to them. This was the dark side of war. Generals were not usually among the casualties. Innocent bystanders would be the victims, and foot soldiers and their families would be victims. Wali’s stomach churned at the thought.

As Wali sat and considered options, he watched Jemna do the same. The creature would surface occasionally and look around the caldera. It would then submerge as lightning would rain down from Gale.

Yacob had recovered some and worked to keep the ice barrier from melting or caving in. The weight of the ocean pushed against it. Reiki was tied up dealing with the refugees with her crew.

How do you kill a massive nautilus from hell in a bowl a couple of hundred meters deep and hundreds of meters wide without emptying the bowl? Wali was sure that the beast would surface to fight them. The issue was it was far beyond them in terms of strength. Sas’cha was the most powerful and had been beaten badly by the monster. The mana density being low was not an issue. The nexus that fed the original obelisk prison was no longer bound to the stone. The power generated there was now filling up the caldera and would soon enough spill out into the wide world.

Wali toyed with thoughts of removing the water, but none were safe or functional. He spent a lot of time considering and trading ideas with Vinny and Trickster.

He looked out across the caldera. Filling the caldera with stone from the cliff was discarded as the displaced water would allow Jemna to get to the ice dam. Sas’cha suggested fighting it, but that was scrapped.

Eventually, Wali landed on another idea. He had Yacob bring him up a pair of large stones. Wali carved runes linking the two stones, creating a mirror between them. One would grow cold as the other grew hot. While they could not boil the bay, they could start killing two birds with two stones.

One stone was rolled onto the ocean side of the ice dam. The other rolled down the seawall into the bay. Wali linked the runes he had carved into the rocks and then used another spell to connect their transference to the mana of the nexus. They watched as the rock they had kicked into the bay began to glow red, and steam rose from around it. Soon the water around it was boiling away. On the other side, things were slower, but a spiritual Noodle confirmed that the cold stone was working as the ice was forming around it.

This would not be a solution, but it freed up Yacob to help think of solutions. The ice forming on the oceanside would help reinforce the dam and keep it from failing before they were ready. The boiling water would eventually reduce the waters of the bay. Eventually was the key term here. This was a solution that would take years and not hours or days.

They could not poison the bay. There wasn’t enough poison in all of Marsai’s expansive gardens to do that. Wali’s idea of removing the oxygen was the same. There wasn’t enough stuff to make something like that happen. They weren’t sure the herald needed to breathe anyways.

Wali thought of a red tide and massive fish kills from his world. Algae might be a solution to the water issue. Seaweed hadn’t been bound into the shell armor of Jemna.

Plans were made, and everyone got to work.

Wali called up to Gale, “Gale! It is time to return! Scatter the storm and allow the sunlight into the basin.”

The elemental cried out in a fury, “I can destroy this mountain! I have the power!”

“It is too protected, and I need you for the final fight!” Wali called back.

“It is true that I cannot strike it below the waves,” Gale replied, disappointed.

“You have done so much damage so far. I want you to finish the job, but for that, we need the sun.” Wali told it.

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“Argh! I do not want to! I have the power!” Gale cried.

“Return to the spear now. It is time.” Wali replied. It was like talking to a toddler.

“Noooo!” Cried Gale, and a bolt of lightning struck the water.

“Get in the spear. You have had your chance. Soon enough, I will need you for another task. One that only a powerful storm elemental can do.” Wali said placatingly.

“What is your plan?” Gale asked, shrinking a bit.

“I cannot tell you now, we must make other things happen first, and you are making those more difficult with your presence.”

“The other ships….” Gale said.

“Yes, we need to evacuate the refugees. Those ship captains will not approach your fury.”

“They are weak and afraid,” Gale said, victorious.

“Yes, yes, they are. And we cannot take the next step until these people are safely away from here.” Wali said, looking out into the ocean. Over the past few hours, three of the five ships that had been in the bay had returned. They all had space for the refugees but would not come closer to the localized storm over the bay.

Gale wailed in defeat. Lightning struck the spearhead, and Wali felt the storm elemental return to its bindings. Overhead the storm began to disperse. The swirling clouds above stopped spinning and flowed outward like oil spilled over water. Soon enough, the day was bright and warm.

While this happened, Yacob and Reiki worked their way around the seawall to the closest they could get to the cliffs. There they began to mold and shape the stone of the cliffs into a path. A path where those that huddled for safety on the cliffside could escape. It was not that difficult. Wooden posts had been placed there as part of the original floating city. They made a thin sheet supported by buttressed sections. Vinny went among the refugees, healing wounds and seeking out any worthies that might be able to help fight. Sas’cha had no job and lingered around Wali, keeping the peace by sheer intimidation.

When the clouds had cleared, the ships began to send long boats. Evacuation would take time, but the captains and leaders among the townsfolk organized it as swiftly as they could. By the early afternoon, another pair of ships arrived. Captain Horvath had returned with another ship.

Wali watched and waited as the people of Guilfort were slowly evacuated from the danger zone.

The following day all that remained were Reiki, the companions, and several volunteers.

They had all retreated away from the seawall and into one of the abandoned cliffside apartments. The next step would be hazardous to anyone out on the seawall and exposed to the elements.

Horvath and his ship “Day’s Work” were in transit miles away and were due to return in three days’ time. Either the companions would be successful or not by then.

Once Tag confirmed that the area surrounding the seawall was clear, Wali released Gale again.

The Storm elemental spread itself far and wide. It gathered winds and twisted them into a funnel. The center of the funnel hung over the low bay. Gale reached out the twisting winds and touched them to the ocean side of the seawall. Dead fish, rotting dolphins, and other dead sea life were sucked up into the waterspout. They were pulled upward and over the seawall, dumped unceremoniously into the bay. The mass of floating bodies extended hundreds of meters out into the sea. The water was thick with rot and disease. The noxious mixture sprayed out over the half-empty caldera.

Wali kept the apartments they hid inside enclosed in a bubble of clean air. He had modified one of the head-nets Marasi had given him into something like an airwall. It produced and circulated clean air in a closed area that blocked the entrance to the artificial cave.

The group watched in horrified fascination as a sea serpent rag-dolled into the bay. It tumbled down the inside of the rocky seawall, breaking apart and scattering gore and effluvia down the wall. This continued for hours as Galed vacuumed up the remains of Jemna’s army and deposited them into the bay. Soon the bay was filled with a thick soup of nastiness.

Jemna was clearly distressed by this change in its environment. It circled the bay, repeatedly trying to pull itself free with its thick tentacles. Whenever it looked like it was making traction Gale would rain down some lightning and corpse on the herald.

Wali almost had sympathy for the insane herald. His stomach turned at the thought of drowning in a sea of rotting fish and whales, but he was afflicting the herald with that. The process took hours, and Jemna grew even more frantic. Wali saw the few beasts attached to the herald’s shell falling away. The water was becoming more and more toxic. It was slowly killing the living armor of the herald.

One of the few Guilfort folks that remained was a selkie named Jamesen. He was a water mage who maintained a watch on the quality of the water. He regularly reported how toxic the bay was becoming.

This was quickly becoming an industrial waste site. Wali thought the EPA would have to turn it into a Superfund site. Wali now understood how places like the Brown Wastes had been made. Mages could wreck the environment with time and effort. A combination of them was terrifying to think about. Those who had done war with the heralds and Demon Lords of the past had made those places. Now Wali was going to do the same. Natural forces would eventually reclaim the bay. It would take years and years of tides to wash away all the disgusting filth they had poured into the basin.

When Gale was done, it returned to the spearhead without much argument. It felt sickened by its actions. A sense of the natural order being twisted this way had not pleased it. It complained long and loud, but Wali had kept it at its task.

They waited another day and watched as the herald tried again and again to escape its cage. The team of Guilfort, Yacob, and Vinny would go above the herald on the seawall and throw down stones, arrows, and spells to discourage it. Jameson reported that the water of the bay was now entirely toxic.

Wali placed another of the bags on his head and breathed easily. Some of the other men secured a long rope ladder they had constructed, and Wali climbed down to sea level. Sas’cha climbed with him. Yacob and Vinny waited above, ready to respond as needed.

Wali went to the water’s edge and called out with magic, “Herald Jemna. You have been defeated. Come, and I will end your misery.”