The Illithians complete a massive fleet of ships on land. While the Angelic fleet patrols the waters around Aquilia the Illithians set up dozens of boat slips on the coast and set up their boats. The Angelic fleet forms up for battle, seeing what the Illithians intend to do. On a signal the Illithians launch all of their ships at once, putting 100 galleys into the waters around Aquilia, opposed to the angels 50 galleys and 10 galleasses. The battle is joined between the walls of Aquilia and the shore. The first day of the naval battle results in an Angelic victory, losing 5 galleys and a galleass to the 20 galleys lost by the Illithians. The next day is far fiercer as Angelic Nayal’s unleash their full magical power, calling down lightning and compelling the sea to rise up and drag down Illithian ships. The plant controlling Nayals even bring the wood of the Illithian ships back to life and turn them against their builders.
Illith responds by loosing their Nightmares and Terrors against the Angelic fleet. The Terrors establish empathic links with the Nayals and use the connection to turn them against their own allies, while the Nightmares unleash their own Nayal magic back against the angels. Even with the use of Illiths demons however, the Angelics still emerge victorious in the second day of battle, sinking another 40 Illithian galleys while losing another 7 of their own, along with three more galleasses. Illith calls off the battle for the next several days and withdraws the Illithian galleys back to the safety of land.
A group of Angelic Nayals were caught in the battle, a plant mage, a water mage, and a lightning caller. The three of them are brought to Illith, who begins to experiment, seeing if they can find a way to gain the angel’s powers. After using the blood in a necromantic spell fails, and attempts to entrall them also provide no powers, Illith finally burns one of the angels, the water mage, in disgust. To their surprise this works, and they gain the Nayal’s power over water. They experiment with the next two, trying to find out if there is a specific component of the angel that must be burnt.
They discover that it is the burning of the wings that provide them with power, and soon Illith has gained the powers of the lightning callers and the plant mage as well. They give the order that all wings of defeat angels are to be brought to them, and then prepare for another day of naval combat.
The two fleets clash again, the angels now outnumbering Illith’s ships. The battle begins to turn towards an angelic victory once again. On shore Illith consumes the shadows of 100 enthralled shades, allowing them to assume a truly massive form. They take the shape of a great winged lizard and take to the skies over the battle. Using the powers inherited from the souls of demons they establish an empathic link with all of the angel Nayals on the battlefield, and use the connection to feed an overwhelming amount of magic into the Nayals. The magic proves to be too much for the angels to hold, and they explode, blasting holes in the ships they had crewed. Illith then uses their new found magic to direct the sea against the angelic fleet, slamming the remaining ships together, lashing them together with the plant magic, and then calling down lightning to burn the entangled ships. With the Angelic navy out of the way they proceed to fly towards Aquilia. Once they reach the walls however, they meet an impenetrable barrier, the demon souls Illith had consumed renders them vulnerable to Kolki’s wards. No matter how much they rage against the wards, and no matter how much magic they throw against them, they cannot enter Aquilia.
The remaining dozen galleys aren’t enough to carry the army into Aquilia. Instead Illith settles on another plan. With the threat of the angelic navy removed, their workers are free to rebuild the destroyed causeways. Much of the foundations of the old causeways remain, and Illith directs their workings to start piling rock and sand into the water to build a bridge to Aquilia along the old causeways. The remaining Illithian ships are used to protect the builders, and watch for any more angelic fleets.
Illith returns to their normal size, and their new capitol, the newly built city of Contritio.
An Aquilian ship manages to make it back to the Arche Ophania, bringing new of the destruction of their fleet at the hands of Illith. The angels react in horror, until this point believing themselves to be the undisputed masters of the sea. They do learn however, of how the wards on the walls of Aquilia repelled Illith. They call their other fleets back to port and inscribe them with the anti-demon runes, while commissioning a new one to replace the one they lost at Aquilia.
The rune catches on elsewhere in the archipelago, it finds its way into artwork, and is carved into the sides of buildings. A conscious effort is made to heavily ward the most important buildings in the city. The unfinished new great temple has hundreds of the wards incorporated into its design, the Ophanim’s palace too has hundreds wards placed on it.
The war in the Confederation continues. Several cities fall to the undead, which are then taken by the Collective after the horde as moved on. The siege of Medio continues, but the undead horde around it has taken serious casualties.
Raedself and Ordella arrive back in Seren’naie and begin to teach the Fae their life magic. The Fae gain the ability to swiftly grow plants in a matter of hours, and trees over a matter of days. They allow themselves to take portions of trees, such as branches, or some bark or sap, as long as they use their magic to heal the trees directly afterwards. Their sculpture work improves as they are now able to use living wood rather than dead wood. They use their magic to grow trees into desired shapes. They line the “streets” of Seren’naie with these living tree sculptures.
The Burshii use the light emitting ink to provide light to the inside of the great library. They use it as paint, putting it on the walls and ceiling to provide light for those reading in the library, removing the need for torches , which could prove disastrous in a library. The amounts of ink they need to completely illuminate the library is immense. Massive ink farms are created in Shang Tudi to supply all the ink needed in the great library. While this is going on both the Burshii and the Shang Tudi continue to produce works of writing, steadily growing the library’s collection.
The Burshii hero masters spirit magic. They have the earth rune tattooed onto them next, and proceed to learn from the original earth mages.
Amadora’s heroine completes the mandated temple and places the knife of Trafine on the altar. She begins to conduct the ritual taught to her by Amadora to convert the knife to Amadora’s control. As the ritual commences the knife begins to talk into her mind again, trying to cause her to stray from the ritual, again offering her power if she will only carved a phrase into her skin. When the Cloistered proves too resistant the knife begins to call to others for aid. Some in the city who are of weaker will than the heroine heed its call and attempt to break into the temple and take the knife. The heroine had expected this however and had barricaded the doors, preventing them from entering. Finally, after hours of resisting the knife’s call the ritual is complete, and the knife has been converted to Amadora’s domain.
The wraiths in Avell’s plane use their new gift to begin exploring the world as they had never been able to before, hunters having proved too much of a risk to allow them to enjoy they world. They flit from location to location, taking in the sights and returning to Avell’s plane before anyone arrives to hunt them, where they remember the locations they visit and make them a part of the landscape of the plane.
Clades gathers their massive swarm of elementals in the Confederation. The location was chosen randomly, but happens to be positioned near one of the cities occupied by the Collective. They begin to direct the swarm, all of them using their powers in tandem. Twenty of any given elemental working together could create a disaster, thousands of all four species working together summon a cataclysm. First the wind begins to whip around in a massive storm, miles in diameter. The winds on the ground are hundreds of miles per hour. Anything they reach is ripped from the ground and dragged into the swirling vortex. The Nyx turn the clouds that have been drawn into the storm to water. Now massive torrents are ripped around by the wind. They come into contact with the walls of the city, their speed causes them to wear them away like sand. The Kthoni begin to shake the ground. A small ground could create an earthquake. The thousands of them split the crust in two. Every structure within 100 miles is shaken apart by the earthquake, and its shock can be felt across the entire world. In the archipelago some glass shatters as it is knocked from a shelf, in the desert a Burshii ruins a book as the shaking causes them to spill their ink. Up through the crack in the crust lava spouts, the Djinn take control of the lava, incorporating it into the storm as the Nyx did their water. Flaming rain begins to fall from the sky as the Djinn magic takes hold. Soon the concentration of magic causes the very oxygen in the air to ignite, and the storm ends in a massive fireball. Chunks of rock and lava are hurled hundreds of miles by the force of the explosion. The nearby city is completely destroyed, along with its Collective garrison. For hundreds of miles around other cities are devastated. Every shade within 200 miles is destroyed by the radiance of the explosion, as its light erases them in an instant. Those of other races fair no better. Those who wear looking towards the Cataclysm are blinded and they suffer massive burns over most of their body. Others are killed as the shockwave collapses shoddily constructed buildings as far away as Aquilia. Most of the participating elementals are killed, the Cataclysm being far more powerful than any of them had expected. A lucky few are able to use their magics to shield themselves, but they are few and far between.
Where the Cataclysm was created a massive new volcano emerges, as lava from beneath the crust bursts to the surface.
Ishnaya: 3 acts, 8 endowments, 3 miracles, 2 curses
Avell: 1 acts, 5 endowments, 1 miracle, 2 curses
Trafine: 6 acts, 8 endowments, 3 miracles, 2 curses
Orboro: 6 acts, 8 endowments, 3 miracles, 2 curses
Rall: 6 acts, 8 endowments, 3 miracles, 2 curses
Amadora: 5 acts, 7 endowments, 7 miracles, 2 curses
Aeneas: 6 acts, 5 endowments, 5 miracles, 2 curses
Kolki: 2 act, 3 endowments, 4 miracles, 2 curses
