Conditor Imperatoris Hogaz.

17th Septara, 1492.

22:00

***

We had all changed when we emerged from the Darkroom. But in many regards, I had changed far more. I had been a warlock before all but Bazz and Urshure. Though in a sense, we were all the same, and not just because we all became warlocks before our evolution. Nay, it was because our patrons were always seen as the most dangerous, the most unruly, the most… verboten. That was where the similarities ceased, however, for my pact manifested as Sorcerous Lunacy. Madness-inducing knowledge paired with Amun's fusion of light and darkness. My aides, as I'd come to know the perks I'd acquired thus far, were mere training wheels meant to get me used to my arcane capabilities; yet they amplified my power still, easing the strain on my mana well. Now, post-Darkroom, my arcane power and that of the divine in my spirit made them outright devastating. Thus, they were to be used with restraint; I believed until our tenure with the Necro King's clone, forcing me to acknowledge the change to come. The war we were all preparing for. Not to mention the nations placed on our shores.

Nigh was the time to address them, lest they be lost with the turning tides.

And so, there I was, standing atop the Moonsliver's deck, anchored 454 kilometers northeast off the cliff coast of the Moft Mangrove, staring - as those scale-armored sentries were - at the many 'monster towns' spread throughout the pitiful county and the infamous city of thieves. Goblins and orcs of the blue and green variety swarmed the city of Gobrinqi, out in the sticks a couple hundred kilometers west of the rogue city of Gasinx; relegated to a life of monstrous conditions and hard choices like their eastern kin and the lizalfolk who outnumbered them in the coastal city of Givziedak. Three cities formed in a line some 410 kilometers long.

Three cities that would soon find a new foundation beneath the waves.

The stalemate between me and the Brybian soldiers ended with my leaping off the Moonsliver's deck. The wind whistled as I fell to the churning waves, then bled to silence as they passed overhead, when the abyssal waters turned to an infinite night.

With my mind and spirit dominated by the Lunarian Crown, I crashed atop the coral and saw lunar dust plume around me and disperse in a nonexistent wind that churned them away, mixing distant thoughts about a certain Triton into my stream of consciousness. A slight pain scratched the back of my head as I thought of how glad I was that Zohnos wasn't there. Not for the sake of protecting his position, but to be free of his passive judgment. And so I let the scratching pain guide my gaze to the coastal wall of Brybs, then glanced up in time to see the crimson-aura'd hues of the soldiers diving, their forms magnified by the lunacy in my eyes.

They dove in waves and in squads of ten, crashing into the waters and holding fast to drift to the seafloor, maintaining rank and file above the ones who dove before them. Their gauntlets clutched tridents pointed before their chests and imbued with a magical radiance akin to the slim blades sheathed to their ankles and the cape-like nets draped from their shoulders. Shifting my focus away from them brought notice to the glistening words sprawling across the coastal wall; parameters from Blude, essentially telling me to disregard the rulers and their peninsula while plunging the people out to sea; out to the results of my artificers and engineering undead's efforts during my absence.

While behind me sprawled the Bodhi Peninsula's continental shelf, the seafloor before me was colonized by industrial complexes exposed to the open seas, backdropped by titanic towers of stone and aluminum bronze. Catwalks connected their upper levels, their surfaces colonized by coral and swarmed by fish that schooled lazily above the blocks of domes behind them. Cities anew for those deemed monsters, places of prominence in which those thieves and their roguish culture would be blended with the large-scale, low-notoriety professionalism of Blude's mafia and that of our elegant pirates; so long as they made it past those holding back the tide.

Devoted toward the denial of such things, I unleashed my construct from its place in my shadow and spread my arms, allow the nucleus of its core to envelop my armor while its watery tendrils extended from my back akin to the 'wings' used by Toril's knights. The water clung lovingly to their amorphous grace as they coiled before me and lashed out at the waters behind me, ejecting my comparatively diminutive frame across those dark skies at a ludicrous speed. Though all those soldiers saw was me ignoring water displacement entirely as I swam impossibly fast, pushed by the mass of tendrils at my back, intaking more water to eject me towards the gathered battalion. With so much water concentrated behind me, it was natural for it to be swept by the tide of my lunar sorcery flowing into my blade as I unsheathed it. Its glimmering edge shone ever-brighter; brighter even than the darkest days in the Darkroom, as I reeled it back, saturating the seafloor in Amun's light to where it remained in those corals and grains, even as the energy cascaded into my blade with my wild slash.

The spell manifested as an echo of my slash, ejecting a crescent moon blade to rake across the seafloor, churning the waters behind it until it scattered into shards that cascaded through the ranks. The glimmering shards left by the blade pulled the darkened pigments of viscera to their orbits and forced them through the waves, pushing the growing volumes of water against the rising shores until a titan of a wave towered over their pitiful excuse of a bay.

The residents of Brybs - the port city - watched in horror as the dark wave, glimmering with motes of light, erased the trade city of Xurx, just a hundred kilometers in the distance, on the other side of the bay, knowing full-well the waves would travel to the other side of their peninsula to crash against the port city of Glam; hoping their elevated structures would hold against the widening bay. Yet the waves kept coming, swallowing the distant cities wholly, their waves crushing everything in their paths as they swept around the peninsula's landlocked side to meet where Fruitctha stood.

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What they couldn't see were the prominent rogues, and the disenfranchised locals who'd received Blude's rings being swept by the rushing tides, their forms enveloped in bubbles that popped to reposition them in her suites, spread far and wide across the Bodhi Tree's waters. Those who remained tumbled amidst the buildings they once dwelled in as they cascaded with the ebbing flow, their bodies and their possessions pulled from the city to disperse out to sea, eventually falling like rain for those who lived, and drifting like snow for those who failed Amun's judgment. For as many who spread among the seafloor behind me, however, there were two more who turned tail for the shores. Not to strike and lash at the battered battalion before me, but to ransack what remained and to loot that which was forever out of reach, for the battalion was impeded by the pockets of viscera imploding into schools of undead parts. Severed legs and tattered arms, biting heads, and mangled torsos, pulled through the drink along jet streams toward their futile throes. And in their wake was my legion, wanting battle. Not that there was much for them to eat.

With the enemies come and gone so easily, my sights looked to the battles scheduled ahead, for there were more issues to address before the war; more tasks to complete before our grand voyage. And so my eyes settled on my fleets, causing my second blessing to activate and expand my mind to a point high above the peninsula. Yet, unlike I saw with my first taste of madness or when returning to the Mortal Plane, the surface was subdued beneath a dull gray veil, causing the many winding rivers, lakes, and the seas to pop vividly, highlighting their every feature to me, as well as the colored shapes and scribbles denoting our ships, allies, and enemies spread across the peninsula's waters.

It was a blessing inspired by the 'game' Admiral Riptide joined after melding with Iris's sentient emerald. A blessing granted to all admirals within my legions to facilitate the management of their fleets. And so I saw them attempting to bring prominence to waters of poverty. And so I saw Admiral Bella Hampton, our civil chief - or as they were now called, Grave Keeper - toil here while we learned from the Necro King, creating a system in which the locals would gain employment in Blude's facilities and be paid not with wealth, but with provisions and resources. Through our culture and the knowledge they'd gain, they'll learn to use those resources to build their lands to a level of eminence unseen in their Duchess. And through that, my Lunarian citizens above would have their mortal home. Through that, the people of Brybs would have the seas.

Through that, the 4th Assault Fleet would have the Bodhi Tree's waterways. And so I directed, guided them through the Chaulortian Bay. In those distant waters, her fleet dove beneath the waves to sail past the Chaulortian capital of Crowmond unseen, moving up the Sprinwage River and past a dilapidated bridge to enter the territory of mounted brigands and raiders before the river parted three ways. Veering south down the Littlekeep River to enter its source, Froi Lake, they disembarked on the lake bed to surface in the wilds before skirting around to the Chaulortian cities of Sandwich, Lostlefell, and Westlemins to source recruits and implant teleportation posts for her fleet, giving them entry and fall-back positions near the Rharian Borders to scout and probe. Now, her ships were to soar to Thulmelt Lake just across the Kasian border, crossing hundreds of kilometers to splash down in the Fruictha River within the heart of Bluszil's Land, where they would continue out to sea unabated.

While they would rendezvous with us, the same couldn't be said for the one who oversaw the development of the submerged palace before me, mirrored by the docks, harbors, shipyards, warehouses, and other maritime facilities we raised nearer the Kasian border. As I was now, Admiral Ragnuron Stronghull - our ArcaTechist, or whatever still unagreed-upon title for our arcane engineer - directed his artificers and engineers from the far side of the peninsula, where Oeklinge, the Sea Mountain maintained a vigilant watch over Rhar. With their orders fulfilled, the 3rd Stronghull Fleet fleet scattered itself across the Bodhi Tree's eastern waters, not to build, but to posture, forming a defensive array around the Bodhi Tree's shores while their mother-ship and mirror fleet, the 5th Battle Fleet, bared their teeth at our enemies. The arcane missile launchers and spell cannons of both fleets remained forever locked on the Great Melbenzar Forest of Rhar, their charges imbued with the foulest toxins and diseases concocted by the Eldritch Engineer and the Flesh Mother.

Those were concerns of both the past and the future, however. An even more distant concern was addressed by Admiral Riptide, who sent his Survey Fleet to the southern edge of Brybs County at my order. Settling Peng along the seafloor in wait, he ordered the linear truss of its eel frame to release detachments of survey, research, and reconnaissance vessels to have them swarm around Kasia's shores to an unmarked island at the peninsula's southernmost tip, intending to build a lighthouse of our design, meant to survey the seas between us and the Legion's destination.

More immediate was the concern of Admiral Stubbs, who had her 2nd Stygian Subron disembark in Chaulort's so-called 'monster-infested' Bay to do as they did before our training and scour the principality for recruits of the goblin variety while she treaded the waters, seeking those monstrous beasts come to our aid, only finding a basilosaurus; a primordial whale that let Lu-Lu approach due to our association with Blude and our Lunar essence. Having since befriended it, I directed her Subron to build its new home and their new station in Rhar's Towceshambe River and turned my attention to the miniature swan taking flight from the surface of the Great Ligin Bay, addressing our most immediate concerns, much like those other flying Lunarians.

While Admiral Vexx sought a direct approach, Admiral Woodgrain sent his 6th Carrier Fleet on a survey mission across the rivers and lakes until they got in range of their old islands, where his sky skiffs deployed to see if anyone had made a claim of Henmouth and Batnosya Islands, finding instead, a palace overrun with undead as Amun promised. And so they turned south to survey Clithamia and the pirates who ruled it from above, providing direction and overwatch for the operatives of 1st Task Fleet Victory.

Looking through Admiral Vexx, I saw them dive through the night skies with cackling laughs and wildly free spirits, landing with silent splashes in the depths of the fat island off the southern and eastern coast of Redagh and Ligin, respectively. The two fjords straddling the northern and southern coasts served as the only entry points to the relatively small sea on its western coast, all ruled by the pirates on the island of Clithamia. Not to attack or even probe, but to observe, prepare, and wait for Amun's foray across the seas with us, months from now.

There was much to do before the year's end. Much to do before that ultimate test. Then, we would be taken to our home. Then, we would prepare for the voyage of legend.

As it did of late, thinking about it drew my eyes to the south, to the blue-black mirror stretching for untold leagues to the other realms; looming to untold depths; harboring all manner of life from Tritons, Merfolk, Atlanteans to Sea Elves, Storm Giants to Abyssal Leviathans, and… Kraken.

As it did of late, thinking about those once nightmarish things brought one question to mind; a question of how my Lunarians would fare against those ancient things.

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