This is the final post in the series of posts describing a large event in Achaea. Start with the first post if you’re interested.
Posted on August 14:

Subj: …To end the night eternal.

The forces of Sapience massed upon Mount Nicator, rallied there by the party returned from their audience with Ugrach. Warriors hailing from all cities, all affiliations, gathered together with a single mission: destroy Slith. The consequences of failing to return Slith’s corpse to Ugrach were explained to all, and all pledged to see that it was done. [It is rare that the player factions, whom are quite acrimonious with each other at times, all cooperate against a common threat like this.]

Once preparations were complete, Riashain[player] knelt close to the dome-shaped ward of power there around Tavarius-Slith[NPC], shielding his eyes from the brilliant light penetrating its apex. With trembling fingers, he held the shadowed blood ruby before the ward. Prisms of red light coalesced and refracted through the flawless surface of the ruby, dancing wildly over the gathered crowd and falling across the face of the unicorn.

Bending a knee and lowering her slender neck, the unicorn angled the tapered length of her spiralling horn directly towards the gemstone. As she braced herself firmly upon the icy ground with silvered hooves, tendrils of crackling energy whirled and expanded around the base of her horn.

With a sudden ‘CRACK‘, the unicorn released the chaotically surging patterns of interwoven light in a single focused beam, directing it straight at the centre of the blood ruby with tremendous force. A shockwave of energy rippled across the ward as it slowly began to turn crimson.

Steadfast, the unicorn’s coat glistened with a fine sheen of sweat from the exertion, muscles aquiver as the man within the ever-reddening shield of light faltered, his face suddenly awash in shock and disbelief. As the powerful beam of energy continued to penetrate the ward, the man standing within threw his head back and screamed with fury. Swaths of darkness dematerialised all around him, unveiling a great skeletal form armoured in a masterwork of black steel plate - the true form of Slith!

Snorting small bursts of white smoke as her hooves scraped and sparked against the ground in attempt to maintain her purchase, the unicorn strained against the energy surging through her radiant form and coursing out the tip of her horn. A bright-hot wave of energy pulsed up the single ray of sunlight cascading down from the centrepoint of the eclipsing planets and down into the ward around Slith.

With slow, majestic precision, the triune planets of Noxtra, Lunastra, and Somnustra began to glide apart upon their natural trajectories, gradually unveiling the shining face of the sun once more. The golden sun’s radiance enveloped the three planets, and their rotating outlines wavered dramatically. For the briefest of moments, all became hushed and still.

With a thunderous, deafening crack that cleaved the heavy silence asunder, the planetary orbs collapsed into themselves and exploded, each followed by an immensely unstable shockwave. Millions of planetary fragments diffused upon the wake of the powerful interstellar wave in all directions, either hurtling into the sun to be consumed or flung at breakneck speed into the depths of space.

With a great peal of sound, oscillating red and golden waves of light encircled the ward atop Mount Nicator, then burst and diffused in a dazzling cascade of colour and crackling sound.

Maniacal laughter roared down Mount Nicator and echoed through the Southern Vashnars. Bound no longer by the ward he had woven with the sun’s energy, Slith lay about him in a fury with blades and spells, cutting down the armies of Sapience as easily as ripened stalks of wheat. Many claimed later that they heard a horrible whispering within their minds that caused them to run in fear against their wishes, breaking rank and leaving others to die.

Though many blows did land upon Slith and weaken him, the battle was already done: after breaking their first charge, Slith had broken the army’s spirit, and they did not regroup for a second. According to some tacticians, a second charge more organised to prevent breaking ranks in fear may have overcome the undead prince. The truth of that claim, the world will never know for certain.

Slith sprang into the air with his batlike wings and flew towards the Pash valley, where he entered the temple of Mithraea, the Goddess of the Sun. He stalked through the temple in a rage, slaying several sentinels and Aerilius, the Priestess of the Solstar as well as followers of the Sun Goddess. As a final gesture, the undead prince contemptuously set the entire valley of the Pash aflame, then vanished.

Though Slith remains unvanquished, and the Mitrans mourn for the deaths in their temple and the continued imprisonment of their goddess upon another plane, still, rejoice: the eternal night has passed at long last, and the shining face of the sun graces the earth with her life-nurturing light once more.