The skies above the mist-shrouded island faded to black, the sun unwilling to bear witness to such horror. Only the shimmering emerald orb of the Chaos moon dared show its face on such a night, but the clouds over Ulthuan hid the torment of its inhabitants from such a leering gaze.
Ulthuan's brightest and most beauteous star had been torn from the heavens, and that grief was for her people alone.
The masked statues upon the Shrine of Asuryan wept blood from their hidden eyes, and the waters around Tor Elyr broke and seethed with anger, shattering crystal bridges that had stood for thousands of years. Roaring waves heaved the surface of the Inner Sea, capsizing the few silver-hulled ships that plied its waters and dragging sorrowful mariners down to their doom.
The lands of the Inner Kingdoms, golden realms of eternal summer, knew at last the touch of winter as cold winds blew from the north and ignoble rains battered the balmy plains. Magical sprites, capricious things of glittering mischief, transformed in an instant, their mischief turned to spite, playfulness to malice. The forests of Chrace echoed with the sound of enraged beasts, and lone hunters abroad in the shadowed depths sought the sanctuary of caves or tall trees.
Towering breakers battered the rocky coastline of Cothique as the ocean surged with fury, desperate to spill over the land. Within the Gaen Vale, the mountain of the crone maiden rumbled as though ancient geological faults tore open, and black smoke clawed from its summit. From Sapherian villas and the coastal mansions of Yvresse, to the rocky, cliff-top towers of Tiranoc and palaces of such beauty that they may only be told of in song, the land of the elves knew pain and sorrow.
The great statues of the Everqueen and the Phoenix King that stood sentinel over the mighty port of Lothern trembled upon their mighty footings. The light of a thousand torches illuminated Lothern, but the marbled Everqueen remained shrouded in the deepest shadows, and all who looked upon the regal features of the Phoenix King saw the stern and unflinching countenance crack, like the carven track of a single tear.
Ulthuan's warriors, mages, poets and peacemakers alike wept with their magical home. That shared woe passed from the elves to the land, and from the land to the air. And as Ulthuan mourned, it spread on the winds of magic throughout the world until even distant kin in ports as far away as Tor Elithis breathed in the sorrow of the Everqueen's fate.
The distant asrai of Athel Loren grieved with their long lost brothers and sisters, the slumbering Orion and fey queen Ariel dipping the branches of their forest home in shared anguish. Though the paths of the asur and asrai had taken very different turns through the ages of the world, their shared heritage was still a bright thread of connection between them.
Even the crude and unsophisticated race of man felt something amiss in the world. Children – who alone of the race of men retain their sense of wonder – woke from troubled dreams with a scream on their lips, and those forced to pass the long watches of the night in wakefulness felt the touch of the grave draw ever closer. Dramatists and dreamers felt an aspect of beauty pass from the world, while those whose lives had been touched by the asur in some way felt an unreasoning grief they could not explain when the sun's rays once again illuminated a world that seemed just a little less bright than before.
If the dwarfs of the mountain holds felt anything of these events, none could say, for elf and dwarf had long since lost any love for the other.
Only the fallen elves of Naggaroth revelled in this time of suffering. As drops of blood fell to the loamy earth of Avelorn, cold laughter echoed from the crooked towers of the druchii's accursed cities of dark iron and bloodstained stone.