Our planning was done very quickly. Niv-Mizzet's map was detailed enough that we could identify approach routes, estimate defender numbers, and assign roles based on our previous fights during the merchant hall battle. The dragon watched our discussion smugly.
"We are separating into two groups," Gideon said, his finger tracing the map routes. "We will simultaneously launch an assault on both ritual sites, then converge on the beacon once both are down."
"The timing must be precise," Niv-Mizzet confirmed. "Within minutes of each other. Any longer and the remaining active site compensates, and the barrier holds."
"Communication between groups?" Samut asked.
"I'll establish a temporal resonance link between myself and whoever leads the second group," Teferi said. "This way it would be impossible to jam our communications".
I was only partially listening to the discussion because my hands were already moving, pulling materials from the ring's storage while the ward's protective field gave me something I hadn't had since arriving in Ravnica.
Space to think clearly.
The ward had gone up, the immediate threat had receded, and, after not being in immediate danger, my mind felt like a forge that had been burning at half temperature, suddenly given proper fuel. Thoughts moved faster, connections formed more readily, and I became aware of a wrongness that I'd been experiencing since my arrival without consciously recognizing it as such.
My memory previously had gaps.
I reached for recollections of the Outlands and found them crisp and complete. I reached for memories of Olympus and found them intact. But the period immediately following my arrival in Ravnica, the first hours in the city, carried a quality of fog that didn't belong there.
Something was working on me from the moment I arrived.
I turned the problem over while my hands worked on the second ward disc. The effect was a subtle magical interference that operated below conscious awareness. Not enough to control me, otherwise I would have noticed, not even direct enough to qualify as compulsion, but sufficient to dull certain cognitive processes and prevent me from accessing my full capabilities.
A combination of factors, the connections forming now that the interference had receded. The new plane's magical architecture interacting with my nature. Whatever Bolas is doing with the leylines and the beacon is creating a kind of magical static. And I'm not a Planeswalker. I'm a divine being from beyond this cosmology who can travel between realities through my rings, rather than through an innate spark. It likely created an unexpected side effect that caused this. This was the last time I would allow external influences to affect me. This was only my third plane, and I wouldn't expect to have an immediate counter to everything, but in this case, at least it wouldn't influence me again.
That distinction mattered more than I'd initially appreciated. The beacon had been designed to trap and suppress planeswalkers, built on intimate knowledge of how spark-based travel functioned. I wasn't spark-based. My ring was a crafted artifact, a simpler solution to dimensional travel rather than an organic one. The suppression field had caught me because my ring drew on dimensional energy that the field blocked. Still, the cognitive effects had been a side effect of how my divine nature interacted with a suppression system and the plane combined somehow.
Now that the ward was up and creating a clean zone of protected space, those interactions had clarified. My mind finally worked properly again.
Good, I thought grimly, because we're going to need everything working properly for what comes next. Bolas would not be an easy opponent especially since he is halfway to his goal by now. It wouldn't be the first time I get rid of an arrogant being anyway.
The second ward disc took shape under my hammer faster than the first, because I now understood the design and could optimise as I built. I incorporated the lessons from the rush work I'd done earlier, tightening the rune sequences and improving the efficiency of the protections. The range would be similar, given the time constraints, but the field would be more stable and less likely to develop gaps under sustained assault.
"Heph." Gideon appeared at my elbow, watching the forging with some fascination. "You're making another one?"
"One for each group," I said without looking up. "Take this when I'm done. Give it to whoever in your group has the best chance of keeping it secure and staying near the centre of your formation." I glanced up briefly. "Karn will give us the first one."
"I think it should be you who keeps a hold of it," I said. "You're indestructible. Nothing the Eternals carry will damage you, which means nothing they do can prevent you from maintaining the ward's position, as long as you keep it on your person and stay within the formation's center during the assault."
"Niv-Mizzet wants to move in five minutes." Gideon looked like he had recently got the message.
I quenched the disc in a small amount of holy water from my dimensional storage, the only appropriate liquid I had available. The disc hissed and steamed, runes activating sequentially as the protective mechanism established itself. The field reached outward, and I felt the familiar dome of energy settle into place.
"Here." I pressed the warm disc into Gideon's hand. "Don't lose it."
He examined it, turning it over to study the rune patterns. "It looks so much smaller?"
"The ward is better than the previous one I made. It has better Protection against the one thing that's been killing planeswalkers today. As long as you carry that and maintain position near your group's center, the Eternals lose their primary weapon." I picked up my hammer and looked him directly in the eye. "Go disrupt a ritual site, Gideon."
He smiled, "That I can do."
**
Gideon
The approach through the Golgari tunnels took barely any time, moving fast through passages that smelled of earth and decay and centuries of underground civilization. Gideon led his group with Karn on his left and Samut on his right, the disc warm against his palm through the gauntlet he wore.
Behind him came eight other planeswalkers, a mix of combat specialists and magical experts that Teferi had helped select.
Teferi walked at the group's center, maintaining the temporal resonance link that would allow him to coordinate timing with the second group. His eyes occasionally went slightly unfocused as he monitored the connection, threading his awareness across the distance to wherever Heph, Chandra, and Ranni were making their approach.
"It's two hundred yards," Karn said, consulting the mental map he'd constructed from Niv-Mizzet's notes. "The passage should open into a chamber that connects to the surface. The ritual site is approximately fifty yards beyond that connection point."
"What are we expecting?" Ajani asked from behind them.
"Eternals in a defensive formation around the ritual circle," Samut said. "At least one champion based on how they've been deploying forces. The circle itself will be guarded by additional mechanisms that Niv-Mizzet couldn't fully document from his observation distance."
"Simple then," Ajani said with dry humor.
The tunnel opened ahead into a chamber lit by magical lanterns, brighter and harsher than the passages they'd been traveling through. Gideon paused at the threshold, pressing himself against the wall and carefully looking into the space beyond.
The chamber was massive, clearly carved into Ravnica's bedrock over a long period rather than formed naturally. Ancient Golgari stonework covered the walls, but the chamber's current occupants had overlaid it with structures that looked deeply wrong.
The ritual circle occupied the center, perhaps thirty feet in diameter, inscribed in lazotep metal that had been melted and poured directly onto the chamber floor. It burned with cold blue light that pulsed in synchronization with what Gideon assumed was the beacon far above them. Streams of energy rose from it toward the ceiling, disappearing through the rock toward the surface and the power systems feeding the barrier.
Twenty Eternals stood in defensive positions around the circle, humanoid zombies in full lazotep armor with weapons drawn and attention focused outward. A champion sat on a throne of preserved bone at the circle's far edge, its preserved form wearing the ceremonial armor of what had been a powerful warrior before death and mummification. Two massive crocodile Eternals flanked it, each one large enough to swallow a normal person whole.
Gideon stepped into the chamber.
"Here we go," he said, and walked forward without hesitation.
The Eternals responded immediately, with the closest three advancing, hands reaching and weapons raised. Before they could close the distance, Gideon felt the ward disc pulse warmly against his palm, and the Eternals' reaching hands found nothing to grip, the purple color around their hands dimming.
"Push forward!" Gideon called out, his sword blazing with white light as he drove into the nearest Eternal with his shoulder. The zombie flew backwards from the impact, crashing into two of its companions. "Don't let them establish a formation around the circle!"
The difference from the merchant hall battle was immediately apparent. Without the fear of spark extraction driving caution into every decision, the planeswalkers in his group fought with an inspiring ferocity and aggressiveness. These were beings who'd survived impossible odds across multiple realities, who'd faced down gods and cosmic threats and emerged intact. Against two dozen Eternals and a champion, even powerful ones, they had no chance.
Karn waded directly through the advancing Eternals, his metallic body shrugging off their attempts to extract his spark, the ward reinforcing a protection he already possessed to a large extent through his nature. He reached the nearest section of the ritual circle and began examining it with a growing understanding of what would be required to disrupt it.
Samut moved through the Eternal defenders with blizting acceleration that made her effectively impossible to catch or predict, her blades finding the gaps in lazotep armor with each strike. The champion rose from its throne and moved toward her and she drew it away from the circle with deliberate provocation, keeping it occupied while others worked.
Ajani engaged three Eternals simultaneously, his axe moving in aggressive arcs that kept all three at the edge of his reach while preventing them from flanking. White mana burned around his hands and the blade, the combination of passion and righteous purpose that characterized his particular brand of magic making each strike hit harder than the physical force alone would account for.
The champion made its move, breaking away from Samut's harassment with a burst of speed that covered thirty feet in two steps. It aimed for Gideon, recognizing him as the group's center and therefore the greatest threat to the formation's cohesion. Its weapons were ancient, ceremonial in design but functional, and it wielded them with skill.
Gideon met it head-on, his sword against its paired weapons in a clash that sent sparks flying across the chamber floor. He couldn't be hurt by its strikes, his invulnerability absorbing impacts that would have shattered ordinary warriors, but the champion was strong enough that its attacks carried genuine physical force that pushed him backward step by step.
"Ajani!" he called.
The leonin planeswalker disengaged from his three opponents, trusting Teferi to slow them long enough, and drove his axe into the champion's back where the armor was thinnest between shoulder plates. The champion lurched forward, losing momentum, and Gideon used the opening to drive his sword through its chest with enough force to pierce the ceremonial armor entirely.
The champion's animating magic disrupted. It collapsed into the stillness of truly dead flesh.
Karn called from across the chamber. "I've identified the disruption points. I need a few seconds of uninterrupted work".
"You have it!" Gideon replied, moving to cover Karn's position while the rest of the group dealt with the remaining Eternals and the two crocodile champions that were now advancing from the circle's far side.
The crocodile Eternals were massive, heavily armored and absolutely dangerous in the confined space of the underground chamber. Ajani and two other planeswalkers engaged them directly while Teferi's temporal manipulations kept their movement just fractionally slower than their animating magic intended. The crocodiles would launch their nuzzles and attempt to spin.
Gideon stood over Karn and destroyed every Eternal that came within reach with sword strikes, his invulnerability meaning he could ignore defensive considerations entirely and focus purely on offensive output.
Your weapons won't help you win. If you face me, you will only hurt yourself.
Karn worked with deliberate calm at the first disruption point, his hands moving through the lazotep inscriptions with a knowledge of magical engineering that let him find the specific places where the circle's structural integrity was vulnerable. The blue light flickered when he touched it.
The second point took fifteen seconds of focused effort while one of the crocodile champions tried to push past Gideon's position. Gideon simply stood in its path and let it crash into him repeatedly while Karn worked, each impact moving him back inches rather than feet.
The third point was the most complex, the circle's power distribution hub where multiple inscription lines converged. Karn spent his final ten seconds there while the remaining Eternals threw themselves against the group's defenses in a last-push assault.
Then Teferi spoke quietly. "Now."
Karn drove both hands into the third disruption point simultaneously.
The ritual circle's blue light flickered, surged, and died. The pulsing connection to the beacon above severed with a sound like a struck bell, and the energy streams rising toward the ceiling simply ceased to exist.
"The circle is down," Gideon said clearly, knowing Teferi's resonance link would carry the information to the second group. "Moving onto the convergence point."
The remaining Eternals in the chamber stopped advancing as their connection to whatever directed them was partially disrupted by the circle's collapse. The purposeful coordination that had made them so effective simply evaporated. Disoriented zombies were a manageable problem compared to what the group had just fought through.
They moved out of the chamber quickly, heading back through the tunnels toward the convergence point Niv-Mizzet had designated.
The first circle was down. Somewhere on the other side of the city, Gideon trusted that the second group had done the same. For a moment, a strange chill ran along his arms. He felt the vast vibration moving the ground itself, and a sudden surge of wind blew through the tunnel they had just come through.
He felt a familiar energy presence nearby as well.