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Somewhere else There are many roads to the Temple of Vhoka, built on a platform deep above a bottomless sea, far out into the inky void of the Dreamlands that stretch on forever in an endless sky of ever-changing colors that the unwary do not study too long lest they find themselves studying the place for eternity. The Temple is this - a low place like an iceberg in a blood-red sea, a small fragment of curled stone like an animal's tongue extending a story or two into the air, surrounded by jagged rocks like an unholy maw. A perpetual waterfall falls below through the mouth, down into guts that must be miles deep, but the temple itself never floods. Vhoka is after all very hungry. A line of stairs seemed to lead down into the water, if one is brave enough to do it. The roads are this, the curls and twists of the Cosmic Coil that leads one to this place through worlds enough and time. The Sea Devil arrived in this wise - erupting out of the bottomless sea with a maddened cultist in her grasp, the man's mad chanting interrupted by his gasp of astonishment. "What!? But no unprotected human could have survived such a spell - and lived!" "None did!" agreed the Sea Devil before picking him up by the ankles and striking him against the rocky causeway until he was no longer a threat. after that she hunkered down on the island where she and her prisoner had landed, studying the distant fortress of her foes and the slippery stone pathway that led there. Perhaps she had come hastily but she knew that time in Freedom City would not last forever, and if they were not careful, there would be no saving those transformed by the cultists' spell. Her liver turned over at the thought of what had taken place - Lemurian sorcery, Lemurian magic, corrupted by Surface-Men again, this time to change the world in the image of one of their long-dead vassals! It truly was disgusting. She sat down next to her unconscious prisoner and sniffed the air, then after a moment's consideration opened her helmet and pulled a still-wriggling fish from her armor, tossing it in the air before catching it with her tongue and swallowing it in one mighty gulp. Normally she chewed but this was a stressful day, and a thorny problem. Surely she and Tarva couldn't have been the only ones to find the Road to this place? She would take the place alone in Dagon and Hydra and Singularity's name if she had to but the Lair of the Devourer was perhaps a bit larger than she had imagined...

Soooo...This will be @Ari's domain, honestly. But! Get your postin' muscles ready, @Thunder King and @Vorik! https://www.freedomplaybypost.com/topic/10624-like-a-wagon-train-out-of-hell-terminus-invasion-2018-ic/

July 10. 7 PM. Freedom City. Southside. The city was a battleground. Omegadrones in the sky. Heroes everywhere. Broken glass and shattered buildings. Bodies in the streets. Doom had come to Freedom. Naturally, the civilians needed to get out of town. Equally naturally, there was zero chance they’d make it without a heroic escort. The convoy was big. Several buses and a multitude of private vehicles. Obviously, it wasn’t the only convoy, with Freedom being a city of literally millions. Heroes were spread desperately thin by the invasion of the Terminus, leaving only Prism and Mannequin to protect this particular convoy. Things had been relatively quiet. They had been noticed by Omegadrones, but other heroes had taken them on allowing the convoy to get across the river. It kept happening, too. But for now, everything was quiet as the vehicles rumbled down into the Southside to the trainyard. Planes were a no go, as Omegadrones could blast them out of the sky with little effort. And the highway had been jammed since 2. So, trains. Just had to get to the depot.

July 10, 2018 8AM Joan Collier's soothing voice greeted Freedom City's commuters on July 10; those that didn't already have today off anyway. "All of Freedom has turned out for what may be the largest gathering of metahumans in recent history; a commemoration of the death of the Centurion twenty-five years ago-" In the waters off the coast of North Bay, Aquaria watched as Jessie and Baxter played fetch in the surf. Tourists usually didn't come to the beach by the airport, which made it the perfect spot for locals in the know looking to get away - especially when one of them generally couldn't be seen by human eyes. They'd brought their gear, just in case superheroing turned out to be necessary; but this was supposed to be a day off. In Bedlam City, Anna Cline was up early with her plate of breakfast sausage and eggs and a live newsfeed. Thanks to the satellite hookup her sidekick had made, she didn't even have to see the stupid Bedlam talking heads. In Britain, UNISON heroes Mark Lucas and his wife Monsoon were eating lunch in Vanguard's headquarters, their son sitting on his father's lap. It had been a good teamup. Woodsman slept late that morning, curled up in his tent screened from the bushes, his motorcycle chained to a nearby tree. Next stop, Minneapolis. The Omegadrone called Harrier sat in his house with his woman and was content. The cameras were off and the world outside them quiet. This was a day when neither of them needed to go out. In Emerald City, Washington, Citizen backed himself up that morning, prompted by one of several emails Miss Americana had sent him that night. After that, it was time for a morning speech to the Archetech staff, and then maybe time to get to work? In the VIP section of the audience in Riverside Park, Fast-Forward sat alongside his wife, occasionally shooting a glance over at Wail elsewhere in the crowd of dignitaries. He hadn't seen a crowd of supers this big since...well, since 2013. Elsewhere, Heyzel remembered "And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father" - but found the holy words bitter comfort. 9AM "Thanks for that, Carl - that was Carl Stallone on location with the Freedom League Auxiliary and True North in Greenland, where it seems one giant rock monster found that it bit off - more than it could chew." Joan frowned, as if judging her teleprompter, before continuing. In an undisclosed wing of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Ashley and Jaycee sat in a room free of any electronics and ate breakfast together - practice for that fall. "So, uh, are you really a...a lesbian?" Jaycee asked Ashley while she was sipping her orange juice. Ashley was a veteran superhero and Secret Service agent. She managed to swallow it. 11AM And all at once, psychics and mystics across the city screamed in mixed terror and pain as they felt the very stuff of the universe be violated - - And Harrier crashed to the floor without so much as a sound escaping his lips - - And the sky ripped open above the assembled crowds like the tearing of some great and terrible wound, and with the sound of hellish trumpets the Omegadrones poured forth from the sky like so many locusts- NOON The image of Captain Thunder and the Alpha Omegadrone, plunging together into the base of the Sentry Statue and sending it tumbling to the Earth amid belching smoke and flame, remains one of the most infamous images of the Invasion of 2018- Fast-Forward felt his tendons pull as he runs his way through the city, grabbing people and running them out, but he doesn't care - not yet, not time for that- -And in the center of the city something happenned to the DuTemps Building; great black wriggling things like umbral tentacles spread across the building from the castle downward, enveloping the entire structure like a squid around its prey before tentacles and castle alike vanish altogether 1PM "A body count already estimated to be in the hundreds and-yes, I've just gotten word that the portal in Liberty Park has been closed but that the crisis is not over-" 2PM "YOU CAN EVADE REALITY BUT YOU CANNOT AVOID THE CONSEQUENCES OF AVOIDING REALITY!" cried Abby Brio from her throne, the great golden chair glowing above the burning remains of the Ashton neighborhood, the chair itself cast in an eerie light by the great green dome overhead, flanked by Omegadrones. 5PM "And we are reporting now that the Freedom League has been driven away from the enemy fortress in Kingston as well, thus leaving two Terminus strongholds right in the heart of Freedom City." It was shortly after this moment that Joan Collier handed her desk off to someone else. 8PM The sun is setting. There are war councils afoot and civilians being rescued. The skies are red, but stars glow defiantly through them. There are bodies in Kingston and Ashton, and terrible things are being done to the dead - and very soon to the living. Omegadrones are flying - and the Sentry Statue is still burning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fju9o8BVJ8