Chapter 16-423: A Big Eye to the Heavens

They all watched her as she rose into the sky, and there was a crack and flash of silver-edged jet streaking off for the horizon.

They were all stone cold sober now, staring after her, and feeling that ringing in their hearts, like nothing they had ever felt before.

They could recall her saying those Words in her videos, and just thinking back on it made their hearts skip as they realized what she said, and the Truth flowing through it all. They were going to have to watch them all again...

“I’m gonna have to talk to my dad,” someone muttered. “Anyone, anyone’s granddad still around? We should talk to them...”

“Yeah, yeah, my grampa’s still around...” someone else replied.

“Don’t forget the women. Their job’s a lot different now, too...” another man mentioned. “I don’t think my wife can sew...”

“What’s alchemical ammo cost?” one guy asked hesitantly, glancing at his shotgun on the ground.

“’bout a hunnert times normal ammo,” someone said after a moment, which sobered them all.

“Heard they are trying to make engines, run on gear-winding or magic,” another one offered.

“Small. Four, eight-rows you can plow at most,” another agreed. “Got the plans on the site. Know a guy tryin’ t’ get the designs right.”

Harry Hopkins reached down, picked up the rifle on the ground, and sighed. “I think we should put the guns away, and sit down and watch the sky open up, boys. Get the girls out there, and stare at the shit out there that wants to take it all away from us.”

“Fuck them!” another guy spoke up, and got some quiet murmurs of agreement.

“My gramma cried her eyes out when they opened the sky this winter. Said she could die happy.”

“Having that around all the time, sure would be sumthin’.”

“Go getcher women,” Harry waved, heading towards his truck, rifle held at ease. “I gotta call my dad...”

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“Alright, everyone. We take this slow and proper and we do it Right.”

My Voice carried for a mile in all directions, so there was no doubt everyone was hearing it.

The sun had quietly gone down, and I’d given Aethra’s Salute with a thousand others, solemn and acknowledging everything.

But there was magic and readiness crackling in the air now. This was more than just defiance and ceremony. This was WILLPOWER.

The entire second Ring was stronger than the First Ring had been in prior years. There were more Warlocks, and pretty much all of them were as strong as the strongest Warlocks of prior years.

Legion and Shvaughn could participate while standing watch, sending out their Wrath to Azaia and The Mick, who was wearing an Eldritch Theurge Bracer attuned to Shvaughn. That didn’t surprise me, nor the fact that he swapped it with Amaretta regularly.

Over two thousand Chinese, Korean, and even Australian Casters had shown up to participate, in addition to Priests, Arcanists, and Heartsingers from all over the country.

It was a lot of people. The Church had borrowed a nearby high school soccer field in an open area to make room for everyone and arrange the circles. We could easily return it to grass tomorrow.

Idle conversation fell away at my words, and people focused, especially as I began to Sing.

Well over half of those present were in The Jet and Silver, and many more were intending to join. Those in my Allegiance had naturally heard me Sing, and there was no way recordings could do it justice. +64 with the Words was no joke at all, and magic thrummed for hundreds of miles around as my Voice rose.

Other Voices rose to join it, trying to find that note, the power, and touch the Sublime Chord’s wordless Song. I wove it all together with Cooperative Spell, and it began to rise, rise towards the Haze above, which was already churning before I had even started the spell proper.

Divine magic piled into Heartsong. Arcane magic reverberated and joined in. Eldritch energies from Pacts were an unending torrent, and even the Natural magic of Druids was flowing organically through the whole.

Winding, spinning, Singing in the Sublime Chord. Ley Lines were sparkling, visible for hundreds of miles at the power flowing through them, visible to everyone in hues beyond what mere eyes could see, swirling and building in a massive, gentle vortex towards the grey Haze above.

The souls trapped within the Haze hereabouts had already vacated the area, knowing what was coming. The earth and wind rumbled together as I wove together the Control Weather, the amount of energy available this time at least five times what it had been six months ago, which amounted to about another +20 to the check... which was really freaking impressive.

Caster Level effective 92, Counterspell Check of +108. Even if the Shroud was ready to defy us, it might not have the numbers to do so. We could totally push back the power of a Lesser God of the Weather with a Check like this.

I did feel a wave of resistance from the east, but the wash of it was too far away, and even if it was powerful, it didn’t have the pure Caster Level foundation that ours did. +20 was as much as you could get out of Cooperative Spell, and I was giving it all.

However, it meant that something had noticed our last effort, easily deduced the time and why, and as a test moved to try and counter what was going on. It didn’t take much effort to guess who that was, and it wasn’t good news.

Still, in the end, it mattered not. The spinning, scintillating webwork spiral of the vortex rose up into the Haze and flattened, spiraling in a singing disc of light and music and holy fire that gently burned back the Haze in all directions, spreading for miles and miles and miles, rapidly past and over the horizon.

194 miles in radius with my +5 from Widecaster Mastery. It basically covered most of three states and a huge chunk of Ontario.

Spiraling arms of theurgic fire rippled past and pushed the Haze away. Behind them, the starry sky shone free and clear as it had in the summertime... but it was a different sky and different stars this time.

The spirals faded into a gently burning wall of holy fires, keeping back the Haze that was boiling indignantly at the edges, and the effect steadied.

Threescore individuals who could Teleport whispered Words and were gone with their nearest associates to various locations. Things had come out of the darkness, despite being mesmerized and delayed by the Hypnotic Pattern I’d worked into the magic, and were now trying to be about doing murder, bloodshed, and raising chaos while we were all ‘occupied’.

Most said individuals flitting off had been fighting Cultivators for some time, and were quite up on combat against intelligent opponents and monstrous creatures. Scores of fights erupted all over the city in minutes as the next wave of people abruptly left as well.

Mr. Vroom-Vroom, the shoggoth of Detroit, was conveniently available for Teleporters and Linejumpers to use to send their whole teams out. Even more convenient, Moonjump was available to use since the moon and stars were shining above, and it was only a IV.

It was a totally useless spell under the Haze; nobody would normally have it memorized, or even know the arcane version of it. Amazingly, it had somehow proliferated among literally thousands of people all able to Cast at Seven or higher.

In less than five minutes, over half of the people at the Ritual were gone, led by many, many Starsisters of Sylune bringing them unerringly to places where dark things had come out to raise havoc, and instead found that havoc was coming for them!

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I sat there and did basically nothing but look at the sky at x100 magnification, painting it all in with many other people, matching up details from before, verifying the movements of planets and moons and other stellar phenomena, verifying calculations of orbits or the lack of the same, which meant other forces were at work.

I was keeping an eye on the number of incidents going off, which had exploded as soon as the sky was open. There were new Warlocks with Pacts we’d not seen before, probably Sworn at the Winter Solstice; there were Shattered things; there were Spirits Fey and otherwise, Aberrants spoiling for a fight, at least two Elder Vampires had decided to hunt, and some werecreatures were going crazy under the light of the moon they’d not been able to directly feel for decades, losing any sense of self-preservation as they went on rampages.

There were criminal gangs and Cults moving, raiding teams hitting rival Churches, and even half a dozen necromancers using this night of high magic to violate Sanctified graveyards and try to Bind themselves some nice undead souls. There were sixteen other Ceremonies to Summon in powerful things going on, using the reduced interference of the Haze to their benefit, and not realizing that I could sense each and every one of those sudden thrusts out into the Ether through my spell, and pinpoint the lot of them.

The Moonjumping deliveries of hit teams, helped out by Mr. Vroom, were probably not appreciated. Some even waited until the help was Summoned in, if they were cocky enough... and they knew I was watching, just in case things went sideways.

The Land always liked some extra nibblies, and Baneskulls to Fiends, Axiom, and Anarchy were in short supply, after all.

There had been some debate about Summoning in more Celestials to help out, and the decision had been deferred to Commander Hara’Ara, who had turned it down. With the Earth under the Shroud, the members of the Heavenly Hosts who were usually available for duties in the mortal world here had been reassigned elsewhere, and thus Summoning some in would actually take them from their assigned duties. Add in the memory loss and accompanying shenanigans, as well as vivus being potentially used against them, and it really wasn’t worth it.

That meant more Karma for the mortal forces, and nobody wanted more of that, nuh-uh.

It was the first massive-scale use of Teleporting dispatches and attacks undertaken on the Shrouded Earth. The precision and skill involved in coordinating and the subsequent combats attracted a lot of attention from around the world, and once again underscored the necessity of Interdiction effects around fortifications.

I noted that charting out Interdictions that were standing vs. new was also probably a good way of telling where someone might be up to no good. Specs started going up to track Veil disruptions and solidifications, especially relevant since Summonings were going to be nothing but more common.

With more Seven+’s around, static Interdictions over massive areas were going to have to be put in place, or there was going to be no way to defend against dimensional intrusions that ignored hard walls. Defenses against burrowing/tunneling/earthgliding and flight were also things that were going to have to be put into place.

The professionals watching all this going down, who received and read the reports on just how much violence had been planned this night and was being prevented, could only shake their heads as they realized how different the world was going to be...

I noted that there were four slay-and-replace or Possession attempts on the Constitutional Convention delegates who had already been vetted. The strategists figured that many of the attacks were simply diversions to cover for a subversion attempt at some of the delegates, which the Harsites, nominally under-represented at the Ceremony, had been ready and waiting for.

Shvaughn had likewise made sure she profited. Her instant reports on where to go and what to do had proven very timely indeed. The heads being harvested for the Harsites to question would eventually cast a wider net, and there were certainly more of them, but Shvaughn was basically following trails actively, leading her from place to place, people to people.

They weren’t all Warlocks, either. The dentist who was a preacher of Skulos on the side; two of his assistants who were connected to a truck driver who smuggled corpses with their heads severed from here to there for experiments; the pimp who served as a contact and the prostitutes who ran ‘special items’ back and forth between specific parties...

Yeah, Shvaughn was having a ball wrapping all those people up, and her trail of investigation was just broadening as she proceeded.

Being able to Teleport, even if it was only short distances, meant that she could cover a lot of ground and find who she was looking for very quickly, too. Quite terrifying, she knew it, and she was very good at it, even as she accounted for every kill and why she took them.

A lot of unsolved murders ended up being resolved this Midsummer’s Night...