Abyssal War II
From Valwiki
This event took place late during the summer of 2003 and ended around the beginning of November that same year. It directly preceded Wyand's new tileset and a return to the worldmap from an "overworld" gmap consisting of hundreds of levels, which was deemed cumbersome at the time. It involved all of the active players in the server, and was run by the combined efforts of the entire staff roster, with events picked up and run by varied RPAs alike. Vermain played as Tervana, while Phantos and the rest of the staff filled in for the other monsters.
Several years after the first Abyssal War, a planar-traveling devil by the name of Tervana sought to re-open the gateways between the world of Kharlia and the Abyss. Having shifted into the Void, Tervana was powerful enough to withstand its negative effects and communicate with the remains of Eurogynes, antagonist of the prior war. With knowledge gained from the archlich, Tervana traveled to Kharlia to begin the dark process of opening the gates.
In order to fuel such a ritual, Tervana required the combined power of ten runic tablets, artifacts made in the previous war to help power the mad archlich's plot. Without these, Tervana knew it would be only a matter of time before the righteous heroes of the world banded together to thwart him. These warriors knew well they had to keep the tablets from falling into evil'ss hands, and instead of destroying them for fear of unleashing the powers within, they spread them across the known world in hidden places, and guarded by magical things.
Tervana did not wait for the people of the land to band together, nor did he underestimate their powers like Eurogynes fatally had. He began slow, working his way up through the ranks of the holy and the wise by means of subterfuge, disguising himself as a cleric of Setengar. By the time his plot was discovered, he had already begun opening rifts between the two worlds, and with every new tablet he acquired, another smaller rift portal opened elsewhere on Kharlia, letting out dangerous beasts of doom to wreck havoc on any that crossed their path.
As the world caught on to this scheme, it quickly became a race between two powerful groups: a motley crew of knights, thieves, mages, archers and more versus Tervana and his demonic, devilish, and mortal minions. All of them, trying to get their hands on the tablets and all for different reasons. Some did it for fame, others for fortune, while some did it for morals and others for a lack thereof. Taken aback by this cooperation but convinced of his awesome power, Tervana shed his guise and announced his presence in the capital city of Gadestria, Taron before he had even completed his collection. Adventurers from all over the world flooded the city to uproot the evil that had come from another world, but found the devil had been lying in wait for them. Weeks passed, and many fell, but finally the heroes converged on the topmost level of the holy city's temple. Tervana, finding himself cornered and in peril, attempted to open the primary rift without all ten of the tablets, interrupted while doing so by the advancing heroes. This proved catastrophic, as the ritual backfired and began to suck the entire land mass into itself; in essence, he had summoned a miniature black hole. The adventurers fled, though many perished, sinking into the the ground as large amounts of water flooded into the concave land mass. Tervana was left for dead, and so the people began to rebuild.
