The following cycle once again found the city of Shadowscape abuzz.
The Grandmaster entered the city and flagged down a scurrying guard whose only answer to her inquiry was to gesture in the direction of the portal to the Prime Material Plane.
She found the portal encircled with pillars of light. Iim'mur'ss could only stand there with the Academy Marshall and watch as events unfolded.
Their ears were assaulted with a rumbling sound. As the sound reached its peak, shadows began to creep out of the ground and float upwards. She held her breath as wave upon wave of shadows moved past and through her, as if they were pouring out from a bottomless well.
Unlike before she could find no purchase within the rising tides, no sense of what they were. Each time awareness began to coalesce her connection was instantly cut off by some other force.
The pillars of light around the portal soon seemed nothing more than faint pinpoints; their brilliance dimmed as the distant star returned to the pitch black sky of the Plane of Shadow.
The light moved closer, its size expanding and appearing as a hole in the very fabric of the Plane. For a few brief moments, what many would have sworn was the moon-come-to-the-Plane of Shadow, hung over the dim cityscape.
Shadows formed small dots within the bright circle, and their numbers continued to grow.
Tendrils spread from the smaller black dots to create a web across the bright circle. Then a sound that should never come from an empty sky... more crackling and rumbling of shearing and moving stone.
The shape in the sky began to fracture along the shadow-tendril-faultlines. The first, small pieces fell away, and the light of those parts was quickly devoured by the shadows of the Plane.
With one final, ear-splitting
crack the circle broke into thousands of pieces. What little illumination remained from the shards showed a massive form behind it.
The inhabitants of the city began to move in frantic turmoil. Scraps of conversations about
invasions went unheeded by the Grandmaster. As what she was seeing finally took full shape in her mind, Iim'mur'ss gasped lightly.
High above the city of Shadowscape floated an inverted mountaintop. The angle was such that it was impossible to see what sat upon the flat surface above.
But Iim'mur'ss did not have to see it to know what it was...
... A floating city of the High Netherese...Her next word was barely a breath...
Thultanthar.