Tesla said to Marshall, "The gases can be quite lethal, and are the inevitable result of such a volcanic attack."
He froze, and said, "Someone has just attempted to make themselves untraceable, you can sense it in the air. However, his gravitational effect, though small, is still traceable. It is obvious who is tracking us. Look out for Zeros', Mr. Holier-Than-Thou."
Suddenly there was a large bang as Valos' blade smashed into the shield, and Haraldur awoke. Tesla was tugged violently towards the blade, appearing there within 100th of a second. The blade was moving towards him at terrific speed. What had Haraldur told him to do in such a situation? Be as a planet is to a moon or other satellites, be the star to the planet, use the fundamentals as your defence. He dodged to the right of the blade, as it was ahead of him, and warped the space around him as if he were a body of high mass, like a planet. The sword entered the warp, and Tesla and the sword orbitted eachother, being of roughly equal masses (considering the velocity of the sword). At a critical moment, Tesla judged, using all the skill from his training by Haraldur, when to stop the warp. He did so, and he went flying backwards towards Laus, and the sword flying back to where it came. The shield came back immediately. This had all happened within 1/10th of a second.
Tesla crashed into a patch of farmland just outside the city walls, breaking a leg. He had not been able to concentrate on his fall sufficiently for it to be slowed. He screamed in pain. He then made himself slowly float up, and moved back into the city.
Haraldur looked up and around, and cursed Crimson Empire: "Damn those bastards!" He then increased the power output to the engines far away, and then he saw that they had travelled far enough that they could now, at last, travel North!
With a click of his fingers the city and its inhabitants blinked out of existance, an the island of Laus changed direction, steeply turning from going East to going North, and then the city returned.
Laus was now moving so fast that it would be halfway up the side of the Dark continent within a few minutes, and the wake had increased a huge amount, with 500 metre high waves following them and moving to the east and west. He smiled as he thought about the Imperial navy in ports on the Eastern coast. He then swore when he realised that they would mostly be safe in their ports, or, at least, relatively safe.
Tesla arrived, his leg limply hanging at a painful looking angle. Haraldur winced, and cast a mending spell on it, causing the leg to heal fast. "Be careful with it, comrade, it will remain a bit sore for a while."
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Along the eastern coast of the Crimson Empire, the almost uninhabited area only of note because of its naval importance, having a large number of natural harbours close to other land masses. To the east, somewhere, was where Laus had once been, and, indeed, the Dark Army had departed from several naval bases in this area. Apart from the armed forces though, it was mostly uninhabited.
To the East observers could see a large chunk of land strangely floating on the water, and then massive waves roaring over the top of the water. The huge waves washed onto the harbours, only the most protected surviving, while the smaller naval bases were highly damaged.
In his office, a General frantically contacted Draven through an orb, saying: "Your Majesty! We appear to be under attack from many many massive waves hitting our harbours one after another! I have given orders for the harbour entrances to be shielded, but they will not hold against this bombardment, in fact several in other bases have already been overcome! I thought I should inform you. What does your Majesty command?"
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The Prophet watched him go. OK... It appears out time must come. Melkoth told me that this must be done should difficulty arise. Time for the Grey Empire to rise up.
He turned to another door, and entered the balcony area at the front of the dining hall, and watched his acolytes eat breakfast. He cleared his throat, and said:
"My followers, it is now time. It is time for us to establish the Grey Empire that Melkoth so long ago ordered. We have had this standing for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is finally time to honour our friend and leader. For Melkoth!"
The acolytes cheered and shouted, "For Melkoth!" They dispersed, abandoning or quickly finishing their meals. The thousands of them left the room, and started equiping themselves with spellbooks and components and other magic enhancing items, and some went to hollows in the walls where they were odd magical instruments, which they started talking into. There was exitement from the wait of several hundreds of thousands of years in the air: hundreds of thousand years that these apparent youths had all lived through. They all knew Melkoth by sight.
Within a few minutes, all 377 other bases, not quite as magnificent as this one, had been alerted, and there was quick speech through the instruments discussin battle strategy.
After such matters had been settled, and some strange lensed objects had been pointed towards the Prophet, sending images of him to the other bases, the Prophet reached down his shirt. He pulled up a locket, one similar, but less powerful, to the one Haraldur was reborn from, and shouted, "For Melkoth!" The acolytes echoed him.
He placed the locket on the air, and it stood still above the ground, the chain hanging down. "We shall welcome him back, our leader..." From each acolytes and from the Prophet came black smoke, which converged on the locket. The locket started to glow...
//Stay tuned for my next post, where we will finally learn the Prophet's name!//
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Benito Franco Salazar received Draven's message, and cursed. The wake of such a thing would be enormous. He ordered his fleet home, retaining only his airborne soldiers.
He sent this message to Draven: "Which direction did Laus go in? It has evidently moved far enough away not to be visible from where it used to be."
He moved, alone, to the North to survey the damage a little.
