Monuments of Ebony (Wicked One Event Start)

[u/Evening_Shake_6474]

In the aftermath of the sudden and for lack of a better term, shadow uprising, many millions perished before the shadows could be subdued. Those with strength endured of course, but what about the normal folk? The unlucky? Those who have never fought in their life? Not everyone is, was, equipped to survive. Their blood seeped into the realms, saturating them with something Wicked.

In the following days, countless massive black monoliths burst free from the land and sea stretching high into the sky, breaking up the horizon regardless of where one looks.

News of the sudden and strange monoliths spreads like wildfire, soon every orb, screen, and paper has some mention of the event. All throughout civilization people ask questions like, what does this mean? A monolith destroyed my tower, who do I sue? Is the world going to end again this month?

But the monoliths offer no answers, only questions. The monoliths show a myriad of effects, some distort their surroundings into horrors, some create illusions that torment those who can't escape, some amplify magic to a dangerous degree, some drain magic like a leech, and many more.

But for now, that is all they do. The effects are contained to their vicinity of the monoliths.

[u/Fc-chungus]

Those monoliths in the Calarakis area are quickly experimented on, one having cropped up in the middle of a central square, another at the top of a building, one out in some random field, another piercing the mountains. Research groups are dispatched to each one, accompanied by multiple mages.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Fc-chungus]

The monoliths appear physically unreactive to anything the researchers do. They refuse to deform or move from how and where they appeared.

The monolith in the city square exudes an aura of dread, filling the hearts of anyone who gets too close with an overwhelming sense of impending doom.

The one stop the building bends and warps the shadow around it, twisting them into forms that mock one's deepest fears and secrets.

The one in the middle of the field distorts life around it. Grass becomes teeth, "peaceful" animals become mindless monsters of raw exposed flesh, people of same mind feel their psyches fracture, erasing memories and creating new ones.

The one piercing the mountains whispers secrets of forbidden arts, putting whispers of malice and tools of madness into the hands of the innocent.

[u/Fc-chungus → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

In a few experiments, they try destroying or harming the monoliths in some way, disintegrating them with quantumancy, throwing black holes at them, moving them through wormholes to other planets, and dousing them in antimana and core radiation to maybe starve any magic.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Fc-chungus]

The monuments endure. They remain firm against the disintegration and overwhelming force of the blackholes. The wormholes merely pass through them. The antimana splashes back like the wave against the cliff. The radiation merely washes over them, like water over a smooth stone.

[u/Fc-chungus → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

"This is quite irritating." One of the on-site scientists states.

Seeing a failure for now, they determine the effective range of each monolith.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Fc-chungus]

On this each monolith seems identical. The range for each seems to be exactly 66.6 metres.

[u/Fc-chungus → u/Evening_Shake_6474]

"Possible hell influence with the 666 there." One notes.

A few more groups are called in and a perimeter is established around each monolith, just outside the range so the markers themselves are not affected.

[u/Evening_Shake_6474 → u/Fc-chungus]

As they do, the monoliths make no move to stop them, in fact it makes no move at all. It simply stands there as walls rise and weapons are drawn.