Zalia and Faian found Nateysta in a large clearing near the central tree. He had landed there at Zalia’s request, changing to the medium form that was the same size as her.

  “General Faian, you have fulfilled your promise.”

  He dipped his head slightly in respect.

  “I have, now I would like to know what plan you have to retake your world. If things here are as you say, it isn’t going to be easy.”

  “I’d love to know the plan too, Ro. Who knows how many of those things are in Cormaine,” Zalia said.

  “Yes. Memories have returned to me over the years in your world, knowledge regained and mysteries solved. Cormaine was once a world, sister to yours. I had thought it still, yet I know now it is not. It was taken, folded into a dimension to be used as an anchor for the beings that now inhabit it. In the same way, if this could be undone, the anchor would be gone and the world would perhaps be restored.”

  “The world would perhaps be restored?”

  “Yes. Perhaps. It is uncertain what undoing this spell will cause. In the right way, Cormaine might be restored. In the wrong way, torn apart.”

  “You said it was once a sister world to Endaria’s world, do you mean it once existed in the same solar system?”

  Faian looked at Zalia confused and it occurred to her that neither of them might know what a solar system actually was.

  “It shared the same sun, yes.”

  “Could it being torn apart not cause some serious issues for Endaria then? I’m not really sure what the effects of a planet being ripped to pieces are on the rest of the system it’s in.”

  “It might. There are those who would limit the damage. This is not a worry.”

  Faian, still looking utterly confused, waved her hand in dismissal.

  “Ignoring… whatever all of that means, how exactly are we meant to dispel the power that holds Cormaine in the pocket dimension?”

  “Hmm, a mystery to be unraveled.”

  Zalia cocked her head.

  “You… don’t know?”

  “No. I will learn.”

  She took a deep, centering breath. Great.

  “What do we do until then? There must be something we can do.”

  Nateysta looked up to the dome still protecting them, then beyond it. Zalia followed his gaze to where, in the darkness beyond the boughs of the tree, enemies amassed. They had given up attacking the dome for now, though would start up again eventually.

  “When the dome drops, we will need to fight once again. That is our focus for now.”

  “Prepare for a fight. My specialty.”

  She walked off, Faian on her heels.

  “That was a long winded way of telling us he doesn’t know what to do next,” Faian murmured.

  “We’ll figure it out. For now let’s get down to preparing for a siege shall we?”

  “Right, I’ve brought along six contingents consisting of one group of archers, four high mobility strike groups with the last being combat engineers. I’d love to get the archers set up somewhere with a good vantage, maybe those pillars? I’ll set the engineers to prepare the area around the portal if we need to retreat to it, as that will be our position to fallback to if it comes to it. One contingent each of the strike groups to each quadrant containing an elemental as support. Thoughts?”

  “Sounds good to me, you’re the general. What about the Morning’s Shade members?”

  Faian pointed towards the portal tree as they approached it.

  “Councilman Hav is in charge of the Morning’s Shade members. We are following council rules even here, so we are going to have to work with him on that. Preliminarily, I’d like them held back to be sent wherever needs assistance, along with Hildebrandt.”

  From the vantage point of the central tree, the two women examined the four elemental quadrants that made up the outer ring of the Grove.

  “I’m thinking some of the contingents are going to need protection from the elements out there, things are pretty hostile,” Zalia said.

  Faian nodded her agreement.

  Zalia considered for a moment, then closed her eyes and started making changes.

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  First, she set up tiers of platforms on eight different pillars, two each to a quadrant. Those platforms had a central room built into the pillars with a ritual portal forming. Those portals each led to a small building that rose next to Zalia, grown from the roots of the central tree. She created more complex rituals, designed to create arrows from the wood and stone of the pillars, and placed them on the platforms.

  Next, she cleared away small central sections in each elemental quadrant and removed the environmental dangers from those locations. Lava cooled and wind slowed, a small island formed in the giant lake and dunes smoothed down and solidified into stone. In each of these small safe zones, Zalia created forts from wood and stone, enchanted with further rituals to protect from all kinds of danger. Further portals were created there, leading to a second building that grew nearby.

  “Alright, that should do.”

  She explained what she had created to Faian and they stepped through to inspect one of the forts together. They were simple but easily defensible things, with strong magic to protect from the air. They were, for the most part, a place to rest and recover for each strike contingent.

  Faian asked for her to change some minor things, slightly higher and thicker walls, large barrels of water for the soldiers and other small changes. Zalia did as requested for each fort and archer platform before they returned to the centre tree. Faian made off to find Councilman Haz, while Zalia focused her mind on finding Aylie. She found her sitting in one of the low hanging boughs of the tree with Lumin and Boreal.

  Zalia flew up and landed next to them, wordlessly sitting next to the group. Aylie was chewing on some sort of preserved food bar while feeding bits to both Boreal and Lumin, neither of which needed to eat.

  “It’s different here than I expected,” Aylie said.

  “How so?”

  “I thought that they would be everywhere, an endless horde of demons.”

  Zalia leaned back to look up at the dome through the canopy of the tree once more.

  “It’s empty for the most part, except for the unending number of shades. I didn’t even see one of the demons my first time here until near the end.”

  “I can feel them out there, waiting to get in. Like a yawning pit of hatred and hunger and I… I kind of understand them. I feel that same thing inside, hatred for what they did to my family and a deep-set hunger for revenge. They hate us not for any other reason than our existence. They hunger only for power.”

  That… was a little concerning. Not that Aylie understood the demons, but the way she described her own feelings. On one hand, Zalia did want Aylie to have the opportunity to avenge her fallen family as she thought the closure would be good for her. On the other hand though…

  “Don’t let it consume you.”

  Lumin flopped sideways into Aylie’s lap, obviously in agreement.

  “Only consume, do not be consumed. That is our way,” Boreal added.

  Aylie gave a deep sigh.

  “I know, I won’t.”

  Zalia didn’t push it, turning back to look over the Grove. They had a day until the dome would drop, unless Hildebrandt decided to drop it earlier or a group of Thousand-eyed ones managed to figure out how to break it like the Monarch had. Did the same rules that applied for Ascendants in the other world apply here? If they did, the Thousand-eyes ones didn’t seem to care much about breaking them and why should they if the only punishment for it was allowing the other Ascendants to retaliate? In fact, she should probably warn Faian that they might very well ignore whatever rules there were and break the dome sooner than they expected it to go down.

  Boreal perked up, then jumped off the branch. Zalia peaked over the side to see Boreal land hard, then rush off to meet her children as they appeared from the portal room.

  Zalia took Aylie’s hand and squeezed it gently.

  “I’ve got to get back to preparations but I’m always here for you if you ever need anything, okay?”

  Aylie nodded and Zalia jumped off the branch as well. She flew down and landed gently, unlike Boreal’s missile-like approach. First, she found Faian and warned her of the possibility of the dome breaking, greeting Councilman Hav as she did. She also warned the general that she was going to make some changes to the Grove, then found somewhere nice and quiet to focus.

  There was an ability she hadn’t tried yet, part of the Gold rank upgrade to Druid’s Grove. She reached out and tentatively activated it.

  Power surged, strengthening the rituals, defensive properties and Healing Presence of the Grove. Trees and plants grew more vibrant and the ground beneath felt more solid.

  The effect was both instant and tangible to everyone inside the Grove. She could distantly hear Faian yelling in alarm and smiled to herself. This ability weakened the defenses of her other Groves and sapped that power to increase the defenses of this one. With three other Groves currently being sapped, in addition to this Grove being her Herbal Nexus, it was powerful indeed.

  With that, she had prepared as much as she could.

  A powerful boom echoed across the Grove. Zalia looked up to its origin, where some form beyond the dome had slammed into it. Whatever was out there was so huge that, beyond the leaves and semi-transparent dome, Zalia couldn’t quite make out its form.

  She shivered, wondering what it could be. It was obviously not a Thousand-eyed one, being far too large for that. There was no point wondering about it, though, as they would all find out soon enough.

  Zalia was bombarded from all sides by questions and requests before long, message runners sent by one leader or the other finding her in what had once been a quiet place. Time faded to a blur then and, with no sun, moon or stars, the booming echo of the dome being attacked was the only regular sign of its passing.

  The famed team of logistics officers that ran the military eventually began finding their way through the portal as food, weapons and armour stores were transported to the Grove. Zalia rearranged the central camp as requested, clearing out the area and making it more orderly than her own preferred natural chaos.

  Eventually it was decided that they would put experimental siege weapons into use and plans were laid out for Zalia. She created the machines as requested before others were sent to enchant them. They were like ballistas, with two sets of bow arms layered three times each to create a total of twelve bow arms for each ballista. These were then fitted with bolts that held a glass sphere rather than a sharp arrow head. Mages then filled those spheres with various elemental magics to be released on impact. These ballistas were placed both in the forts and the platforms built into the side of the pillars.

  When tested, the bolts were shot at speeds that exceeded even the arrows shot by Zalia’s bow, though not by much.

  Nearly a day after the dome had gone up, the booming paused for a moment. All looked to the skies once more to see that a crack had formed, before the booming continued. They might have established a foothold in Cormaine, but they would need to fight hard to hold it.