MH-17, 10250 meters AGL, above the Wasteland, same time
The Boeing 777 had reached its attitude a few minutes earlier and Muhamad Rahim had just finished the call for traffic control when a light caught his attention. Looking out of the side window he saw something he could not place.
"Captain Leong, look at 9 o` clock. What do you think that is?"
Both pilots watched the green glowing dome on the ground that changed luminosity constantly and that seemed to be interspersed with lightning. The middle of the dome was a pillar of greenish light that rose to the uncaring sky.
"Normally I`d say some sort of light show, but not there. Let`s call traffic control."
Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 was one of several airliners that reported the event, and it did not take long for the satellite pics to gather attention to the same spot.
As a routine measure the Templar`s security force was called as they were the closest to the event. They had received official recognition as peacekeepers for the region a grateful French government had granted the order.
"Sorry Monsieur, we have no reports of any kind of light show or similar."
"Could you please recheck, we have numerous reports."
"Qui, will do, but when I look out of the window I see nothing."
By that time a Rafale recon flight was on the way, and that brought the authorities to the point where action had to be taken.
Inside a head,Marienburg, same time
The office inside the Karak mixed the old with the new. Walls of natural stone and a floor of barely sanded boards held a massive oaken table and top-notch office equipment. The man behind the desk was clad in a robe and the pushed-back hood revealed a bald head, a mustache and goatee and the most mesmerizing eyes one can imagine.
The somberly clad brother that stood before him was suitably impressed.
"Ah, Standard Bearer Ventrue, thanks for coming so quickly. I hope all is well."
"Yes Grand Master, it is."
"Just that you wonder why I have summoned you from your duties."
"Yes Grand Master, I have to admit I do. I am yours to command."
"I know Robert, I know that very well. Standard Bearer, I have watched your work well and you have a commendable sense of duty. Which is exactly why I have asked you to come here, the order needs a dependable, discrete and determined man who is not afraid to take action for the good cause. And I do believe you are such a man, do I have the right of it."
"Yes, you have Grand Master. Command me."
"The good works of the order are in danger Standard Bearer. There are those who slander our aims and means, there are those who want us to accept their heretical and heathen beliefs. They insinuate that we use the denizens of the Wasteland instead of helping them and they insist that we use evil magic here if you can believe such a thing."
"This is unbelievable Sire."
"And yet it is. The traders of Marienburg have lost their revenue and their mages have lost their powers. Now they seek to make good on their losses at our expense by slander and lies. This has to stop and soon."
"Yes Grand Master, it has to. What am I to do?"
"Gather a squad of loyal Templars and report to the Armory Standard Bearer. It will be explained to you in short order."
"Yes Sir."
The scene faded and was replaced by the Karak`s cathedral. Ventrue stood together with several others before Father Mercer.
Something was wrong about this, but the Standard Bearer could not say what. He had a nearly overwhelming desire to turn around, but such would have been a grave breech of decorum and protocol.
Father Mercer had blessed the mission the Templars were about to embark and had performed the Last Rites on those who wished that. Ventrue thought this a bad omen, yet his men did not seem to be troubled. Perhaps their faith was stronger.
Robert Ventrue stood, with his head bowed and waited for the Eucharist. The communion wafer was white as bone and tasted like ashes, the wine had a strange salty taste he could not place. Yet as always the wine gave a boost to his spirit and pushed his doubts where he was barely able to perceive them.
The good Father blessed him and finally he was ready to undertake a mission for the order that he was not sure he would survive.
Finally he was able to turn around and look at whatever had been demanding his attention at an inopportune time. There was a very slender man, or was it a man, in white robes that seemed to hover in above the chapel`s floor and looked at him in disgust. The apparition receded when he spotted it and the cathedral began to crumble around him like the rest of the Karak, leaving him screaming in darkness.
Dendayar looked at the assembled mages while still holding the head of the surviving assailant in his slender hands.
When he put the head down it dropped to the side as a corpse's head would do. The man was still breathing but unconscious. From his very short hair it was hard to tell, but it seemed much lighter in color than before.
"This one was sent by a group called the Templars, by one Alan Crowlair. Does any of you know of these?"
Magister VanderSchanz was already blood splattered and exhausted, now bewildered entered into the mix.
"Templar you say? I have heard rumors about an order called that and that they have a base in the Wasteland, but that is about it. Why they should attack us here is beyond me. Any of you gentleman have an idea?"
"Give us a second, please."
The Marienburgers watched bemusedly while the four game designers were typing away at their smartphones while muttering something about "bad connections."
It was Matt Ward who stepped forward to present his iPhone 7 to the assembled mages.
"Is this the Alan Crowlair you saw in his head?"
"Yes, he looks like it."
"Then the new order of the Templars has sent these, even if I cannot see what made them do so. They may consider you heretics because you practice magic, but it is a long time since anybody was killed for that, at least in Europe."
"How long?"
"200 years or so"
"Didn`t you say long ago?"
"Yes, why?"
"Ah, you humans never fail to amaze me. No matter, what can you tell me about these..Templar?"
"Let`s see-newly founded religious order, based on the ideals of the Knights Templar of old, couple of thousand members with a few hundred core. They have established a base in the Wasteland, some 500 kilometers south of here. Say they keep the peace in that part of the Wasteland on behalf of the French government, help the poor and have a hospital for the farmers and such there. Seems they took over an old castle that came with the Wasteland. Looks right up your alley-have a look."
Elves have a very light complexion anyway, but Dendayar proved that he was able to pale even from that standard. He took the phone off Ward`s hand before the designer had any chance to voice his opinion about that and held the screen in front of VanderSchanz.
"So, this is what we have seen."
"Oh yes, it is. If that is true the rest will be also. We need to go-all of us and soon."
Yes, but how? This seems a long way away. We would have to travel for a week before we arrive, that may be too late."
"Dendayar, with all due respect, you really should pay more attention to the new world we all find ourselves in. I am pretty sure we can arrange transport with our friends to arrive tomorrow latest. Minher Kelley, we need to transport about 2 dozen people or more quickly to this fortress, can you lend your aid there?
"I guess so Magister, but could you please tell me why you have to go there so suddenly?"
"Those of us with the gift and the sight had a vision. A vision of great strength and clarity and shared in great detail, which would have been rare even in our old world and unheard of in this one. In this vision we saw this castle, we saw a great evil that is to come to these lands and that we need to go there to help vanquish it. Now that you shared your knowledge about the would-be killers with us we are even surer that we need to go there with great haste. We see an evil coming, one that even the great forces of your world will be unable to defeat on their own.
"Don`t get me wrong Magister, we would like to help. But wouldn`t it be better to inform the authorities and work together with them?"
"Are you daft Minher? Remember how long they needed to accept that we could indeed work magic, even at such a reduced level? Until they decide we have anything of worth to say and maybe agree that we could be useful these Templar will have done their deed for sure."
"Uh, yes. It is just that.."
"Excuse me?"
Matt Ward pushed his iPhonebefore the mage and the designer. The video on it was grainy and not too clear, but the Templar`s fortress was still recognizable. The glowing dome that surrounded it orthe pillar of light atop were easily visible and so much harder to explain. There was a running script with "breaking news" below the video, but Marius VanderSchanz barely saw it.
"Soon, so soon. We really do not have time to waste."
Turning away from the discussion he walked into the middle of the room. His staff rivalled the shots fired in this room recently for loudness when he struck the floor hard and brought all attention to him.
"Fellow mages, friends and companions, the hour is upon us. Those of us with the gift have seen a great evil coming into this world, something that would change it forever for the worse. When we came to this world we lost the connection with the Winds of Magic, much of our abilities and the respect of our new peers. They had no great need of our diminished powers and commanded similar abilitiesof greater reliability. They view us as strange, as barbarians and as ignorant. Why should we come to their aid when they do not even ask for it?
We will do so because this evil is coming for all of us, not just for them. We will do so because we opposed this evil in its many forms all of our lives. It has always been there, trying to seduce us with its promises of easy power and the tantalizing glimpses beneath the veil of reality. Yet all of us have resisted this seduction, even when it was so hard to do. I, for one, will continue to do it till the day I die-and I know you will do it too.
Make no mistake, this evil will come to us first and hardest my friends, and we will have to fight it. We can do so at a ground and time of our choosing or cower like little children waitingfor it to come to us, hoping that we might be the last. This is no choice at all.
I say that we gather our aids and our guards. I say that we ask our friends for help and transport. I say we go there, to this fortress, I say we help those who will be in peril there and I say we perform the ritual we have all seen to stop it before it starts for real. Who is with me?"
In the end, they all were with him.
10 Kilometers from the Karak de Redemption, several hours later
This far from the Karak several small farms eked their existence as subsistencefarmers from a soil that gave fruit only to those who worked it hard. Descendants from Bretonia had settled here a long time ago. So far awayfrom everything they had been left alone with their problems yet also mostly ignored by the taxman and the army recruiter. The Weltensprung did not change their way of lifemuch and they would have toiled as before till the Templars occupied the castle. The ruin had watched over their lands long enough, the source of many a scary story and stupid dare among the youngsters. The newcomers had not asked for rent or any great gestures of submission, instead they had offered to help.
The skeptical farmers had accepted the clothing they had been offered and had been happy at the new wells. They had taken their time before they brought their sick to the "hospital", and yet even there the healers were respectful and were actually able to help. They could not save everybody, especially children died from time to time, but that was to be expected. The odds that a child of their farms would reach the grand age of five was less than one-in-threeand the newcomers had helped many to survive . Slowly by slowly the villagers began to accept that the Templars might actually a good thing.
Ever since last night things went mad. At first a dome of light had appeared above the castle and the farmer who had taken a closer look had come back and spoke of a pungent smell and something that stood his hairs on end.
He had been curious, and stupid enough, to throw a stone against the dome. No vengeful spirit had attacked him, the stone had just stopped in midair as if it had struck a wall and dropped to the ground.
Now the village was invaded by monsters. Flying monsters the size of a small hovel, monsters that screamed with power and rage, with bulging clear eyes in front and strange wings on top of them.
The Super Puma Helicopters of the 4e régiment d'hélicoptères des forces speciales had a long flight from Pau and their pilots sat them expertly on the fields that the farmers had laboriously cleared. Scores of soldiers left their transports and established a perimeter around the Landing Zone. A command group set up shop, a team of drone operators readied their equipment and the first squads went out to patrol.
Capitaine Mathias Lambert barely watched the bustling activity around him. He had eyes only for the dome and the pillar of light that came from it.
He had seen combat in Afghanistan and Libya, had been trained by some of the best and thought he had seen it all. Yet, he had no idea at all how to tackle this one.
Vicinity of the dome
While Capitaine Mathis Lambertmight not know what to do with the dome he had orders that would cover the next hours. They directed himto contain whatever was in front of him and so he did. A roadblock went up on the only semi-decent road towards the castle and patrols around the perimeter tried to contain interlopers who did not use that. The early morning light made it possible to spot the Rafale fighters who flew endless racetrack-shaped courses to make sure that nobody tried to fly into or out of the zone.
He walked by Lieutenant Marat who handled communications about every 15 minutes, but there seemed to be no way to reach the inhabitants of the castle.
Finally he moved to the forward observation post that had been established a hundred meters from the place where the road met the dome. From up close the dome seemed even more threatening. From afar it was like a huge heat wave given the shape of an upside-down bowl that gave off light at intervals. Now it was a huge wall in front of him, swallowing the horizon. The light became small lightnings that danced across the surface without rhyme or reason and the fortress inside was cast in a flickering light.
He slid into the ditch besides the road and placed himself besides the sergeant who was in charge of the OP.
"Any changes?"
"None at all Sir. I hope somebody survived in there-I can see no movement at all."
"There should be. There was telephone contact when we detected the dome, but ever since then nothing."
"Maybe that dome gives off some radiation and killed them?"
"It did not tick off our Geiger counters. Let`s see what the eggheads come up with."
The men did not have to wait for long before the wireless went off. Going back up the path he was met by a group of civilians and soldiers who were just getting into their protective suits.
"Good morning Capitaine. Lieutenant Gabron at you service, I will accompany the scientists to the dome. Anything come up that we should know during the last hours?"
"Nothing I can think of."
"Off we go then."
The Capitaine had no choice but to get back to his command post while the scientists went even closer to the dome than the OP and then sent a small tracked drone towards it.
He watched the video from the drone, how it reached the edge of whatever was in its way. A manipulator arm extended itself forward and small sparks emitted from the tip, as well as white lines that radiated out from it for a meter or so.
Nothing else happened.
The arm was pushed against the dome, yet nothing happened. The drone attempted to drive forward, yet despite the soil thrown up by the threads it could not.
These attempts were stopped after they were well proven futile. Instead the drone put up several sensors in an attempt to decipher the enigma in front of the soldiers and scientists.
There was a small meeting at the command post two hours later.
Pierre Lafitte looked like a well-aged Viking, not one of the better nuclear physicists the French army could rustle up at short notice.
"At present, mon Capitaine, I can only tell you what this barrier is not. It is not made up from any kind of electromagnetic force that I can recognize. The lightnings are static electricity, probably a side-effect and no more. There is no ionizing radiation in anything like dangerous amounts, not a great lot of heat, no radio waves-nothing. The good news is that I can state that it is not dangerous to be near the barrier for a couple of hours as far as I can tell. The bad news is that I have no idea how this barrier is made, or how to penetrate it. Presently it looks like that something is binding the molecules that make up the air to each other in ways I do not understand."
"Thank you professor. How about this pillar of light?"
"I have even less data there as I cannot get near to it. Your Heron drone is not equipped with sensors that would give us any clues. From what I can tell it is different in make-up than the barrier, but much more I cannot say. If it were possible I would like to fly closer to the pillar so I can take better measurements. If it were to emit radiation in really dangerous amounts then I would already know."
"That can be arranged professor. Do you know if we can tunnel under the dome?"
"The first 30 cm of the soil seemed to have a similar bonding force to the air, but it is possible that this decreases when you dig deeper, it is certainly worth a try."
"We will do that then. Lieutenant Sous will contact you for the helicopter flight."
"Merci mon Capitaine."
Roadblock close to the dome, a little later
"Sergeant, please listen. The dome behind you was erected by magic. The people behind me are the world`s foremost mages. You will have seen Magister VanderSchanz in TV, haven`t you? You need their help here really. Please contact your superiors and…."
"Madame Merchant, we have been over this several times now. I have contacted my superiors and they do not need your help. Please get back from this roadblock, and best get back where you come from, we need this road bit we do not need mages."
"Sergeant, I…"
"Let him be Madam Marchant and thank you for the bother. I am very sure that the Sergeant and his superiors will change their mind soon."
"Why do you think so Magister?"
"Wait and see. It is regretful that people will have to suffer for this pigheadedness, but we have tried our best at present."
Under the Karak de Redemption, same time
Normally Zuseranz would have allowed himself a little time to pat himself on his currently non-existing shoulders. Things were going just as planned. The two cretins that had believed they were part of some competition were safely imprisoned and bled of energy, his human puppets had either given their all or were performing acceptably well in keeping things going and the dome held fast. He was amazed that the humans outside had not tried to breach it more forcefully but these seemed to be a patient bunch. Not that they would have had any success if they tried with the means he could detect in the vicinity. He knew from his studies that the humans possessed weapons here that would reach through his shield and could do damage to what was within, but he was reasonably sure that they would be employed only when it was far too late.
For now he could not do the shoulder-patting thing as he was far too busy. Upholding the dome, providing close supervision to his minions were child`s play compared to controlling the tunnel. From outside it might look like a pillar of light, but from inside it was a gate, a gate that would allow the powers and energies of the warp to enter Earth. This was possible only by connecting the gate to a very special place and guiding it took every bit of effort and concentration he was capable of.
Currently he sensed a human machine approaching the pillar. If it were to crash into it, it had the potential to unsettle things, which would ask for more adjustments, which would not do. At the same time some others were trying to tunnel under the dome and if they found the right spots they might even succeed. Time to release his second line of defenses then.
Jacques Moselle had been through a huge transformation already when he entered the Templar order. Having gotten rid of bad habits and ugly piercings he had exchanged a pessimistic worldview full of distrust for a life of achievement and wonder. Brother Pierre had been ready to do the Lord`s work as decreed by his Templar superiors at any time, no what.
Last night he had changed even more, so much that he could no longer be classified as human. Zuseranz had stripped him of his body and a lot of what had made up his soul, yet he had not only taken away for whatever purpose the demon had in mind. Zuseranz had given him a new body, one no longer made up from ordinary matter to hold whatever personality Pierre had left and to defend the Karak and Zuseranz` works as long as needed to complete them.
He emerged from the well together with his brothers at a speed that exceeded the one he had when he tumbled down the shaft as he was no longer subject to gravity. What came from the well was made up by folds of space, by zones in which quantum fluctuations were subject to dictate not chance and matter which hardly interacted with electromagnetic forces. He had been left with the capacity to perceive photons and therefore to seen, which at the same time meant that there was a glowing effect in the spaces which he occupied. Besides him glowing shapes that were a reminder of the physical bodies their owners had left behind clawed to the sky in terrible silence.
Pierre could see the helicopter that was so close to the pillar of light, yet there was no need to rely on such mundane senses. The crew`s souls were blips on his radar and some small sparks of consciousness denoted where the more powerful computers on board the machine were. He accelerated towards it and his mental voice joined a chorus of "Deus vult" where he went through metal, composites and flesh with equal ease. His new body did not interact with normal matter but he was able to release energy into it if he so chose. In his path computers went dark, nerve signals went awry and flesh exceeded the temperature where some of the more important proteins could remain stable.
Bereft of guidance the helicopter started to spin and dropped from the sky. It hit the dome on its way to the ground and crumpled as if it had hit concrete. Ruptured fuel cells released their contents over glowing turbine parts and a flaming pyre came to rest at the foot of the dome.
The soldiers in the OP watched the glowing shapes that streamed from the dome with astonishment, turning to alarm when some of them went for the helicopter that promptly dropped from the sky. The glowing shapes were visible as a stream of man-shaped and -sized things that were hauntingly beautiful. They arced in a gentle curve and streamed downwards to the OP closest to the old fortress. When the first shapes were approaching the post the soldiers could spot darker spots were eyes and nose would have been were the shapes human. The biggest spot was where the mouth would be and that gaped bigger and bigger the closer they came.
None of the soldiers in the ditch ran. They shouted one warning and when there was no reaction at all they fired their FAMAS assault rifles at the oncoming things. Four gram of metal do not seem like much, but travelling at better than 900 meters per second the bullets were plenty lethal at this short range. They went right through the glowing shapes, leaving no trace of their passing. The shapes did not change course, did not scream or gesture, they just closed with the soldiers and went through them like the bullets seconds before. The results were totally different. Brother Pierre and his fellow former brothers might be insubstantial, but easily able to add energy to anything in their path. Releasing small electrical currents into nerves, adding heat to fluids and tissues and kinetic energy at lungs and hearts they left havoc in their wake. Soldiers that tried to breathe through collapsed lungs, soldiers who tried to see with eyes cooked like an egg and writhing in pains that had nothing to do with the injuries they had just sustained.
The stream of shapes wound itself around the dome, going for each of the Observation Posts Capitane Lambert had placed there to keep an eye on the fortress. He watched something he had never seen before, something he could neither understand nor handle. He understood the radio calls for help and the screams of his soldiers well enough, some of the latter needed no radio to make themselves heard even here. Those made up his mind for him easily.
"Lieutenant Sous, all units fire at …whatever is there."
It took few seconds to contact his platoons and even fewer to open fire. There were assault rifles too which aimed for the shapes, but also machine guns, grenade launchers and an autocannon. They had the potential to kill hundreds of humans in mere minutes, spewing fast metal and explosives in copious amounts. Mundane metal and ordinary explosives which were unable to reach where Brother Pierre resided and the fury the French soldiers unleashed went nowhere. Lambert had to watch helplessly when the shapes went through two squads of his heavy weapons platoon, leaving only the dead and dying. He was no more likely to surrender or retreat than an officer in any other army one might name and actually more resolute to stand and fight than most. Yet here he had nothing to fight with. The screams of more soldiers made him move faster, they did not change his mind.
"Lieutenant Sous, all units retreat back up the road, rally point is the roadblock. Contact headquarters and inform them that we are attacked by unknown forces that are impervious to conventional weapons."
He was not the last to leave his command post that would have been too much of grandstanding. Yet he was in the last group that made their way up the dirt road, watching the stream of glowing shapes wind itself in ever widening curves around the dome. There had been an attempt to rescue those soldiers that were still in the OPs, yet that had to be abandoned when the shapes inverted their course and went for the would-be rescuers. The soldiers that went up the road mostly walked backwards, pointing their guns at the enemy, keeping with their unit and waiting for a break.
The stream of shapes seemed content to roam around the dome and Capitaine Lambert was about to think they might make it when they reached the roadblock. Besides the soldiers he had sent there a group of civilians clustered nearby. The few glances he spared them made them Wastelanders, the denizens of whatever world Germany had gone to. A mixed bunch, often in colorful robes, and they seemed more frustrated than afraid, stupid fraggers.
His men assembled at the rally point, applied first aid to those who had just received partial burns from the enemy and organize themselves. Lambert was about to take charge again when he saw the eyes of his aide go wide. Turning back to the dome he saw the stream had reared itself up, winding itself around the pillar of light, gaining luminosity before aiming itself towards him. He could see death coming at the speed of a fast car. He saw the tracers reaching out from his men, watched as the stream resolved itself into glowing man shapes that ignored any hits and watched death coming his way. He knew he was about to die, knew that taking cover was of no use and readied his own rifle. The magazine went out in few seconds and the results were no better than any other.
He watched the stream breaking formation, watched shapes going for individual soldiers and saw the one that was about to kill him. He was reloading when Santa stepped between him and death. Well, it could not be Santa, but the was the closest thing his mind would find for the paunch-bellied, white-bearded man who stepped in the way of danger.
The white staff wielded by this man seemed so primitive compared to the weapons wielded by his men, yet when it touched the shape it simply exploded. A strange explosion, with no sound, no pressure wave and no fragments but a burst of light that made his eyes water and that filled his vision with glowing green shapes. Blinking furiously until they cleared the next sight he got was a very different one. The glowing shaped raced through his men, yet in many places they were met by one of the civilians he had spotted earlier. Some, like that Santa close to his used staffs of various makes to combat the enemy, others wielded swords and one even breathed a long plume of flame that devoured several attackers.
He tried to get closer to the man who was protecting him and that somehow looked familiar. Another man who looked like a soldier right out of the 30-years war covered his back with a scimitar that managed to slice the shapes until a shape dropped on him from above, went through him head-to-toe and left a burned-out husk in his wake. He stepped forward to take up the weapon that seemed to move on its own in his hand, so he nearly dropped it. The tip of the blade was still pointed downward when the shape came back from the ground, impaling itself on the scimitar and vanishing in another flash.
The battle was a daze from there, stabbing at whatever glowing neared him and the man who had saved his life. Control over his unit had been lost in the melee and his only reality consisted of the packed bodies, the flashes of light and the dying.
And then it was over. The stream of light reformed, smaller this time and went back to its orbits around the pillar of light. The surge of combat was replaced by the exhaustion and the despair of having too many wounded for his means to treat.
He walked towards the "Santa" like an old man and only straightened himself up at the last moment.
"Capitaine Mathis Lambert at your service Sir. I am very grateful for the assist, I do not thing we would have made it without your aid."
"Magister Marius VanderSchanz at yours Sir, we were glad to help."
"Do you know something about the nature of our attackers or anything about ..this?"
"The spirits that attacked us were very close to Wraiths or Banshees, they can be harmed only by magical weapons. I did not think they could exist in this world, but there are ..new rules it seems. I have no idea what the dome hides precisely, but I know an evil lurks there that needs to be banished or we will all pay a terrible price."
"Don`t get me wrong Magister, I am more than grateful for your company. But I have to ask: What are you doing here?"
"We were attacked yesterday by men that were sent from this place. In the aftermath my colleagues and I had a common vision that made us come here. We have seen these..spirits and we have seen the need to perform a ritual here that will stop this evil somehow."
"You do not know what will happen and do it anyway?"
"We were only shown what were to happen if we do not perform it. Anything else would be an improvement."
"Merde. So what are you about to do?"
"We need to establish a ritual circle for the ritual. Some of our guards were killed and it looks like you can use their weapons well. Please protect us while we are otherwise engaged."
"You have earned at least as much, I will see to it."
"Please do."
Beneath the dome
Zuseranz had recalled his forces as he needed every ounce of concentration that he could muster. The great work was about to conclude and he would not allow himself to fail. The tunnel that was the gate had increased in "length" ever since he had started it. The longer it became the harder it was to keep it safe from those forces in the warp which wanted in and to keep its course. A long time ago he had seen a man balancing a stick on his nose that was topped by a plate and now he could feel with that artist very much. Precise control was so important as the gate`s end had to be brought to one special place and that place only. Just opening a gate to the warp would have been easy, yet it would not have served its purpose. Around this blasted world the energies of the warp were so low that only small amounts of energy would enter this plane. Likewise the Empyrean's denizens were bound to be weak and unable to survive in the warp-deprived desert that was Earth.
Yet, there was a place he could reach there these energies were flowing like from a high-pressure hose and where entities waited that would make such a use of these energies. This world had no experience with his kind and no defenses, they would rip it apart and search the remains for the knowledge that made the new humans in the Old World so dangerous.
And when Zuseranz and his master would combine this knowledge and their lore-who could stand in their way?
He had concentrated ceaselessly for nearly two days now and the strain showed. Yet the hardest work was still before him. The tip of the gate was still in the warp and had to pierce the wall between warp and reality. That asked for great force that needed to be judiciously applied so not to lose the precious balance. He pushed, corrected, pushed again, nearly lost its focus and then nearly lost the gate when it finally penetrated the final wall.
He was so relieved that he would have cried if he still had the eyes for it-and he could feel the first entities enter the gate, feel the great energies of the warp flood through it and empower him and this world. Success.
Then something old, inhuman and mighty grabbed for the far end of the gate.
Just as planned.
Close to the Roadblock
Dendayar of the House Imalayan was at a loss, something he hated with a vengeance. He had never been too interested in this new world as it were only full of human foolishness. Yet a vision and an attack had brought him here, defending humans that thought him useless and still defenseless before even the most basic of wraiths. He had taken his place in the ritual circle, joining his mind and energies with the other practitioners of the art in the way the vision had shown him. And yet he could not see the purpose of the ritual. Neither did they erect protection, nor did they attack the evil that so close in any way. The only purpose that he could detect was to make them a beacon in the warp, a bright beacon that could be seen from afar. This was dangerous-but to what end did he endanger himself.
It was a testament to his skills as a mage that he was able to keep up his part on the ritual and at the same time watch the dome. Something had happened there minutes ago, he could feel it well enough. Black spot appeared in the air, a spot that seemed to contain the blackness of space itself, bordered by sorcerous flames. The spot grew all the while and things emerged from it. Huge things, clad in flame and with membranous wings.
And then the spot moved. Moved nearly too fast for the eye to see, moved from its place under the dome to right next to the ritual circle Dendayar was part of.
More things emerged from the circle and the mage felt icy finger clutch his heart. Surely they had been duped by their vision, mislead by whomever had sent it.
More horrors emerged from the gate and this time close enough to touch.
A hulking, bloated monstrosity, only half-seen behind a veil of magic was borne on a palanquin supported by beings with too many teeth, scales and claws. Recognition tugged at his brain, yet it was too distracted by the things that followed. Metal monstrosities crawling along the ground, guarded with human-like things with disproportionate limbs and heads like ticks. Most of these had a flag painted on them that he had never seen before but that must denote their allegiance to the enemy. What else but that could the colors mean?
Black like the death that surely awaited them.
Red like the blood that was about to flow.
Yellow like the fire that was to consume them all.
The ancient script on one of the monstrosities was easy to see but hard to decipher. Yet he had studied enough of the human scribblings to recognize it.
"Wolfsrudel" (Wolfpack)
