[Baalz]

It watches as the half-man frolics in the dawn air, carefree in the dew and the mist. As the half-man sniffs the spring flowers in the clearing, It waits. Full of life, the half-man bends down to drink out of the lake. Some sense flaring warning of a predator he whirls around to scan the tree line. Behind him, something dark, something terrible rises from the water. Too late the half-man realizes his peril as the oily tentacles tighten around his abdomen and he is dragged kicking beneath the waves. The water begins to churn as legions march forth in a seemingly unending mass.

The slaves of the underneath march from their watery barracks and the nation of Pangea begins its rapid collapse. In a single month, nearly a dozen provinces become dominated by the mind lords, to frolic no more in nature’s bounty. Along Pangea’s eastern shore dozens of spheres of ice shoot from the water to violently explode among the scrambling militia as powerful hydromancers rise dripping to step among the now bloody ice shards. On their northern shore armies of slave mages lead huge masses of lobotomized Atlantean slave troopers, shuffling like the longdead to drown Pangea in a sea of drooling flesh. On their western shore the aboleths themselves crawl onto the land, surrounded by globes of water and robbing the will of any who oppose them. Nowhere is firm resistance found, though there was a single casualty as a young aboleth underestimated the number of Maenads in a province. Everywhere the half men route leaderless as the dominated ones shuffle in long lines back towards the shore. Wading in to drown like lemmings, the are fated to become feedstock for the next generation of Mind Lords. As the tentacles of the Mind Lords close like the paralyzing embrace of a jellyfish, the nation of Pangea goes into shock, it’s heart will still soon.