We were halfway to the bunkers when the light erupted from somewhere near the city's center, a column of pure brilliance that pierced the smoke-filled sky with such intensity that it would have turned night into day for a brief moment. The beam was massive, easily a hundred feet in diameter, pulsing with power.
Every soldier in the safe house stopped mid-motion, staring upward with awe in their expressions.
"What in the hells is that?" someone whispered into the sudden silence.
Razia's expression had gone from tired to fully alert in an instant ,"Formations!" he shouted, his voice cutting through the shock. "Prepared yourselves for combat readiness! Ember, Ash, to me!"
The soldiers moved, grabbing weapons and forming up near the courtyard entrance like the veterans they probably were, and who'd drilled these movements a thousand times. The two divine hounds materialized at Razia's side, their flames burning brighter in response to his voice's urgency and the red mana flowing through his form.
I felt my dimensional ring pulse against my finger, sharp and aggressive. The sensation made my divine senses tingle with warnings.
I looked down at it, focusing my attention on the artifact I'd forged with such care. The runes were glowing, but the light was wrong. Instead of the golden shimmer that indicated readiness for travel, they flickered red and unstable.
I tried to activate it, channeling power carefully, through pathways I'd built into its structure. Nothing happened except the runes growing brighter without achieving function. I tried again, pushing more energy into the ring with more deliberate force and careful control.
The runes flared brighter still, and I felt resistance that had nothing to do with the ring itself failing or from depleted energy. Something was blocking the ring's function from outside, preventing dimensional travel with active suppression. It felt like trying to open a door while someone on the other side held it shut with all their strength.
"No," I muttered, examining the ring more closely with every sense I possessed. The structure was intact, preserved by the dimensional pocket that housed it. The enchantments hadn't been damaged or degraded by my journey through blind eternities. Some external force was interfering with its operation, and that force was connected to the beam of light currently illuminating the entire city.
"Heph!" Razia called from the courtyard entrance. "are you coming or staying?"
I looked up at the beam of light, then back at my ring, then at Razia and his assembled soldiers. Whatever that light was doing, it had to be connected to why I couldn't leave. I needed to understand what was happening.
"I'll join you," I said, joining the formation with my hammer still resting against my shoulder.
We moved through the streets at double-time, Razia casted a red haste spell on all his soldiers, quickly leading us toward the beam's source with the confidence of someone who knew every alley and shortcut in his territory. Other Boros patrols converged from different directions, all heading toward the same location with weapons drawn and expressions grim. The city around us had gone eerily quiet, the usual sounds of combat fading as everyone stopped their private wars to stare at the light that dominated the sky.
"Any idea what that is?" I asked Razia as we ran, my longer and stronger legs allowing me to keep pace with his enhanced speed easily.
"Nothing good," he replied between breaths. "That much power concentrated in one place means either Niv-Mizzet is doing something catastrophically stupid, or one of the other guilds is attempting a major working that we weren't informed about. Either way, we need to secure the area and figure out what's happening before it gets worse or before someone tries to weaponize it."
We rounded a corner and nearly collided with a group of soldiers wearing different colors entirely, their armor marked with symbols identified them as Azorius. Blue and white, the colors of law and order taken to bureaucratic extremes. They stopped in their tracks, hands going to weapons.
Razia raised a hand in a gesture of temporary peace. "Stand down. We're all heading to investigate the light. No point fighting each other when we don't know what we're dealing with or who's responsible for it."
The other commander, a woman with sharp features and sharper eyes, nodded slowly with a sneer still on her face, after a moment's consideration. "We agree to the temporary truce until we understand the threat and determine appropriate response. Then we can go back to killing each other."
"Fair enough," Razia said without a trace of irony.
The two groups moved alongside each other awkwardly, maintaining formation but watching each other with the wariness. More patrols joined us as we traveled deeper into the city. Selesnya scouts on wolf-back, their mounts sniffing the air nervously. Golgari fungus-shamans emerging from sewer grates with annoyed expressions. Even a few Izzet mages, their robes scorched and their expressions manic with curiosity, poking and prodding everyone around them that they could get near without getting hit for it.
Whatever this was, it had captured everyone's attention simultaneously across all guild territories.
We reached a plaza perhaps half a mile from the beam's source, close enough to feel the power radiating from it but not close enough to be caught in any potential blast radius. Razia called a halt, surveying the area.
"This is as close as we get until we know what we're dealing with," he announced to the assembled forces. "Scouts go forward to gather intelligence, the others prepare a defensive perimeter to prevent ambush, mages ready to counter any hostile magic that manifests."
The various guild forces spread out with surprising coordination, maintaining wary distance from each other while establishing a loose cordon around the beam's origin point. I could feel the tension crackling between them, everyone wanting to investigate but nobody willing to be the first to approach and potentially trigger whatever trap might be waiting.
I examined the beam more closely with my divine senses, pushing past the raw power to understand it. The energy radiating from it was enormous, easily equivalent to the strongest magic I'd seen in Mount Celestia during my week among the heavens. But the purpose wasn't destructive or defensive. It was reaching outward, extending tendrils of power across vast distances that shouldn't be crossable, pulling something toward Ravnica with inexorable force.
Calling. Summoning. Drawing something here.
My ring pulsed again, more insistently this time, the runes flickering with increasing urgency.
I focused on it with complete attention, trying to understand the interference pattern and how it related to the beam. The suppression wasn't random or incidental. It was deliberate in its construction, and it was designed to prevent exactly what my ring did: dimensional travel away from this plane while apparently allowing travel toward it.
A trap. I'd walked into a trap, and I hadn't even realized it until the jaws had already closed around me.
"Razia," I said quietly, keeping my voice low enough that only he could hear. "I think there's a problem beyond the obvious one."
"Just one?" His tone carried dark humor.
"I can't leave. Something about that beam is preventing dimensional travel away from Ravnica. My method of moving between realities isn't working at all."
His expression turned grim with the understanding of what that meant. "You're stuck here?"
"Until I figure out what that beam is doing and how to counter its effects, yes. Completely stuck."
"That's... actually not surprising when I think about it." He studied the beam with increased wariness. "If someone's pulling off a working powerful enough to light up the entire city and draw attention from every guild simultaneously, they probably included contingencies to prevent interference from planeswalkers leaving or other dimensional travelers. Can't have people escaping before whatever they're planning comes to fruition."
"The question is what they're planning," I said, my divine senses tracking the beam's energy flows with growing concern.
"Nothing good," Razia muttered. "In my experience, secret magical workings that trap planeswalkers never end well for anyone involved."
The Tenth District, Izzet Industrial Sector, Warehouse X21
A figure stood in the shadows of a burned-out warehouse, watching the beam of light with satisfaction that bordered on religious ecstasy. They were wrapped in darkness so complete that not even divine sight could penetrate it fully, layers of obfuscation magic protecting their identity from casual observation. Only their smile was visible, white teeth gleaming in the reflected brilliance of the beacon.
"The beacon is active," they said to the empty air, though their voice carried certainty that someone was listening. Their words held Joy. "The planeswalkers will arrive soon, drawn here like moths to flame, unable to resist the call and forceful pull we've crafted so carefully."
Another figure materialized beside them without sound or warning, this one more substantial in form though no less ominous in presence. Tall and gaunt, wearing robes that seemed to be woven from liquid shadow that moved with disturbing independence. Their face remained hidden, but their posture spoke of patient malevolence.
"The suppression field is holding at full strength," the second figure reported in a voice like grinding stone. "No dimensional travel out of Ravnica. Anyone who arrives through the beacon is trapped here until we choose to release them or until they find a way to break the working entirely."
"Excellent progress." The first figure's smile widened with predatory satisfaction. "And the guilds?"
"They were tearing each other apart exactly as we predicted they would." The second figure gestured toward the distant sounds of combat that echoed through the city. "The war provides perfect cover, keeping everyone focused on immediate threats. By the time they realize what's actually happening, it'll be far too late to stop the culmination."
The first figure's smile widened into something that suggested they were enjoying this far more than was healthy. "The Firemind suspects something is wrong, of course. Niv-Mizzet is far too intelligent not to notice patterns in the chaos. But he's focused on restoring order, on playing arbiter between the guilds, on maintaining his position as temporary authority. He won't see the larger threat until we're ready to reveal it in all its terrible glory."
"And if he does see it before we're ready?"
"Then we accelerate the timeline and proceed with what we have." The first figure turned their attention back to the beam. "The ascension doesn't require all the planeswalkers in the multiverse, just enough of them to fuel the working. We already have three captured and contained. A dozen more should arrive within soon, drawn by the beacon whether they want to come or not."
The second figure shifted position slightly. "What about the new arrival? The one who deflected the meteor strike?"
"Interesting specimen, that one." The first figure's tone carried detached assessment. "If he becomes a problem or discovers too much, eliminate him before he can interfere. If he proves useful or malleable, recruit him to our cause. Either way, he's another variable we can manipulate in our favor."
"Yes sir."
The first figure looked up at the beam of light, their smile turning predatory with anticipation. "Ten thousand years this city has endured through wars and peace and the endless grinding of political machinery. Ten thousand years of the Guildpact holding civilization together through sheer stubborn inertia and the threat of mutual destruction. But all things end eventually, no matter how permanent they seem. All structures collapse given sufficient pressure. All orders dissolve into chaos when pushed hard enough."
They raised a hand, and shadows coiled around their fingers like living serpents responding to their master's call.
"And from that chaos, we will build something new and glorious. Something perfect in its terrible beauty. Something eternal that will remake this plane in our image."
The beam pulsed brighter in response, and somewhere in the vast multiverse, planeswalkers felt the call pulling at them with irresistible force. They began their unwilling journey toward Ravnica.