The Ukraine, One Year after Shroudbreak...
It wasn’t the first time the Ceremony had been done. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even the fiftieth. The group of Casters here had already done this Ceremony over a hundred times, so executing it again was done with the smooth ease of assurance, led by the Queen of Europa.
Landbound, Heavenbound, and Druids were present, in addition to Priestesses of Sylune and Flora. A considerable amount of magical power was being gathered here, far beyond the power of most single Casters to tap into or control, but the Ritual helped the halvyri Queen at the center of it do the task without much strain, the Sublime melody of her Voice harmonizing all the different energies and powers together, and blended them all together into a swirl of power strong enough to draw something up out of the Land.
It was a piece of the Mother Land, empowered with its own intellect and purpose. It swelled up from underneath them, rising like a small hill in the center of the Singing Casters, for a moment appearing like a gargantuan Earth Elemental, a being of stone and dirt and gravel here in this green-covered, but largely lifeless land.
Even the massive amounts of vivic inundation could not undo the fact that this land had been dead for eight decades. The remains of seeds and roots had flared to life with the vivus, and the grasses and weeds had grown, along with younger trees and shrubs... but there was no life beyond simple plants. Even the ants and spiders had perished, let alone the birds and small animals beneath them.
The entire foundation of the ecology had been destroyed, and needed to be rebuilt.
Green grass and a hundred species of flowers erupted out of the earthen skin of the Nature Elemental as it turned around, surveying the area around it. Bees buzzed between the flowers, a mouse wriggled out of the soil, and small birds came out of the new bushes, beating their wings.
Queen Morningwind pointed solemnly, and the Nature Elemental fixed its eyes on a wall.
The Shroudlord of Russia had set his undead to laboring for decades. His lands were encircled with thousands of these walls, generally about two hundred yards apart, designed to slow down any mass attackers.
Here, where a long line of atomic fury had blown a hole towards the heart of the Shroud, a yawning gap had been made in them, replete with more greenery than the lands between the walls had been able to harvest. But a few yards away, the crumbled remains of that wall still stood upon the Land, sullen and crumbling, but still evidence of what had been done here, a blot upon the land.
It extended out far, far into the distance. In truth, it extended for thousands of miles. It was put in place by countless undead hands, ringing the area commanded by the Shroud, cutting across works of man, plains, hills, streams, and rivers in the way, an endless wall that could be manned by hundreds of millions of undead to defy any incoming foe.
It was a defense for another time and age, and hadn’t been up to the task of containing the Shroudlord’s enemies on this world.
And now, it was going to come down.
The Nature Elemental didn’t so much stride towards it as flow along the surface of the ground, and behind it, life erupted. More birds chirped and flew around, squirrels flitted this way and that, a rabbit poked out its nose, and even a young deer stood up in surprise from a stand of young birch.
The Elemental came upon the concrete and cement of the wall, and rolled right into it.
There were grinding cracks and crunches as the living hill moved over the dull grey of the artificial stone, and the speed of the Nature Elemental slowed significantly.
One of the Landbound came racing in behind the Elemental, weaving his way through the rolling grass and shrubbery that was left behind as it moved, bounding to the top of it, and laying down there silently, gazing up at the sky.
The Wrath of the Land flowed out through him and the Scepter he held in his hand, and into the Nature Elemental below him.
There was a moment of pause at the additional injection of energy, constant and Pure, and the green grass beneath the man didn’t carry him off the Elemental as it did the other living creatures. The cracking and crunching of the Elemental at work became much more muted, and at the same time, more force began to apply beneath it.
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Queen Azaia Morningwind watched the Nature Elemental be about its assigned task. Normally such a creature would be used to cleanse the landscape, turning a land corrupted, despoiled, razed, barren, or occupied by artificial works back to its natural state.
This would all take place over a roaming circle about a mile in radius over the course of a day, generating new wildlife, plants, and the entire native ecology back for the place in question.
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But such a thing was not actually what was needed here. Oh, re-establishing a foundation ecology was important, especially the small animals, and the native plants. But the vivic energy had a done a good job of the latter, and a mile in radius was far too small an area to worry about, given the millions of square miles wiped of life by the Shroud.
No, the true thing that was needed here was demolition, the scale of which mortal men just weren’t ready to undertake. The sheer volume of work to do was mind-numbing, and where to put it all?
And not all of it was cleansed of necroic energy, so it all had to be vivisized.
She flew into the air effortlessly, as did many of those who had participated in the Ceremony with her.
To the west, long green lines arced towards the north, spaced fairly regularly as they did so. Birds flitted here and there, small game dashed about, and the ecology of these plains was being restored.
The green lines followed the exact arcs of the walls that were no longer there, one line for every Ceremony, and each Nature Elemental brought forth to bring down those walls.
The follow-up Calling of three Greater Earth Elementals was much easier, not requiring near the same amount of power. The hulking creatures of natural earth and stone were tasked with aiding the Nature Elemental in taking down the wall, speeding its progress, and were happy to help with the task, quickly moving to help it shatter and spread the worked stone for the Nature Elemental to treat and return to the soil.
Tireless and committed to their Element, they would labor away at their task without stop or fail, until that wall was down.
Three Landbound Warlocks would take turns, one per day, feeding Wrath to the Elemental, keeping the Summoning magic going by the power of the Land itself. Their Scepters were in a Construct-destroying format, with Sundering and Breaking added, as well as Vivus, enabling the Nature Elemental to do its job with much greater speed.
In one day, with the Warlocks, a Nature Elemental could take down a dozen miles of a wall. With the Elementals helping, it could do a mile an hour easily.
It had over two thousand miles of wall to bring down. Far ahead of it, many long arcs of destroyed walls and the life left behind by other Nature Elementals moved ahead tirelessly. The very first Nature Elementals and their destruction teams were nearing the end of their jobs, just a few more weeks to go to bring down the shattered remnants of the outermost ring cutting through what had once been the greatest Deadzone on the planet.
It was occupying a lot of Landbound, but Mother Russia’s approval for this task radiated through them and the accompanying Druids, and Europa did not mind her own Queen assisting Her Sister in this endeavor.
The Warlocks would move to a new Nature Elemental as each completed its task and returned to Mother Terra. Every three days, their group raised a new Nature Elemental, tasked three Greater Earth Elementals to assist it, and three Landbound took on the task of a different kind of fight.
There were many, many people eager to claim the land here. The Ukraine had once been one of the breadbaskets of the world, with wheat and grain fields golden under the blue sky.
In the future, perhaps it would be again. But there was no great population pressure forcing such moves, and indeed, the martial strength to protect such areas was also not there. Atomic Spawn born of the nuclear materials going Wild were spreading across the world, and naturally moved into areas not claimed by mortals, creating dangers that had to be protected against as the creatures began to reproduce.
Russia was one of those areas, but even the vast assortment of magical beasts knew better than to mess with the stone-crunching forms of the Nature Elementals and their entourages... as well as the seemingly endless amounts of living creatures that popped up along their backtrails.
Azaia had seen predator’s cubs among those animals, and this was a magical world now. Some of those normal animals were going to be able to grow to massive sizes, and contest with the magical beasts that were spreading into and across these vacant lands.
There’d not yet been signs of mass migration from elsewhere, but nobody doubted it would come at some point. This world was fat and vast areas once claimed by Humanity and the natives of it were now empty, ripe for seizing by outlander races with a taste for Conquest and War... or sly dragons from the Empire of Cold Blood, slinking into desolate areas and changing the ecology to serve them.
But one thing Traveler had done was leave the people behind her strong. More than strong enough to confront all these forces head on, and if they were united, to even face off against the strongest of the Old Gods or other forces who might be stirring to action.
Emperor Briggs made sure they had that unity. He had moved into the command chair smoothly after Lady Traveler was gone, while Hank Blakhamar had been shocked when he was Acknowledged, Anointed, and Acclaimed as King of Russia. The First Dwarf-King was now at the Tear of Guiogg, the greatest repository of Energized materials in the whole world, and watching over the glowing Shroudbreaker Pyramid that lit a Beacon towards the sky, carrying with it the ominous message that this world had brought down a Shroud, and was looking back at those looking down on it.
Those who followed Briggs were the whole world’s protection against the things in the dark, and where the Ancient trod, Old Gods took cover, and ancient Evils looked for shelter.
Trembling in the dark, plotting and planning to regain their power and status...
The outer world. The Felldeep. The depths of the Oceans. The Hollow World. Hyperborea. The many minor Realms attached to Deepest, Darkest Africa.
The young need room to grow and live.
It was the quiet word from the Emperor of the world. He would simply not permit the old and strong to sit there and maintain a deathgrip on power in the societies around the world. There was a little leeway for the very long-lived races, like the elves and dwarves, but not all that much.
Level up, have your children, guide them, and then get out of their way, finding a new place to build and grow again.
Or go, out into the planes.
Shroudbreaker. A Road to the Eternal. Worlds to save, souls to set free. And all the Karma and riches of those worlds to accompany you to that status.
She looked ahead to that future, when her own time as a mother and teacher and Queen was done, and felt her eyes filling with stars.
The Road to the Eternal, something Lady Traveler, her sister, was already striding along with great steps...