FIRST, Lastwall. THEN, the traitor Czaszar. Lastwall first.

And the Geases are cast and set, and it is when all present are bound by them that Czaszar explains what, precisely, his grand plan is.

"You know," says Carmilla to Morthalas, the day after the meeting, "I do feel that our ruby-eyed friends may be getting the better part of the deal." She plucks the petals from a rose, as she speaks, for the gardens of Lethean Manor are not constrained by the seasons. "Perhaps there are other friends of ours who should be informed? We do not, after all, want another Whispering Tyrant."

Luvick's plan is to make Razmir into a vampire under his control.

That is, indeed, an incredibly terrible idea.

And so she arranges another meeting with the Winter Council, who definitely don't want that outcome either, to see if perhaps they might arrange Something Else Which Is Not That.

Oh yes, complete agreement there.

Don't worry, they'll come up with something better.

( - Flash forwards.)

When the vampires pour out of the sewers and all of Razmir's garrisons are assailed at once, they do not, in one sense, react as badly as you would expect. They know they are garrisons, alone in occupied territory and outnumbered; they know perfectly well that there are powerful undead in Ustalav; they know perfectly well that everyone in the country hates them. They have fortified citadels to retreat to, warded against undead; they travel in groups, they wear armor (those of them who can wear armor) at essentially all times.

That just is not, really, enough. There are citadels, the citadels have garrisons, the troops are in good order, there are silvered swords and arrows, scrolls and wands prepared with Scorching Ray spells with sufficient power to blast vulnerable undead into dust - 

- But vampires are immortal. Luvick predates the Whispering Tyrant. And that is a millennium to stockpile magical items with which to equip his army.

Also, vampires are, frankly, ridiculously powerful. A vampire of mediocre experience, who has trained his physical abilities to the utter limit of what mortal skill can muster without risk to life or unlife, is a warrior better than nearly all of Razmir's shackleborn, proof against all weapons but enchanted silver (mundane silver won't work!), resistant to magic, constantly healing, and comes with three vampire spawn almost as deadly as himself and choice of a pack of wolves or swarms of too many tiny bats to hurt, and, yes, can take over your mind with a glance.

One who has also trained wizardry to the utter limit of what mortal skill can muster at zero risk has all that, plus twenty skeleton bodyguards. And they have had time to prepare and cast all the enhancement-spells they require, before the battle began.

There are, of course, differences by city to how it plays out, city by city.

Razmir's garrison falls instantaneously in Caliphas; not only is Luvick there in person, but an unfortunate fraction of the garrison has been ordered to investigate possible hiding places of thieves in the city's sewers, the night of the attack. Of course the Countess of Caliphas nobly oversees the city's defense, especially after His Majesty the King bravely falls in the front lines, but for some odd reason all the Scrolls of Teleport were misplaced, and the Vision (who did have it) publicly fled in cowardice, taking none of his dispirited subordinates with him. Within the hour the last Razmirani troops have been butchered, and the Queen of Caliphas is holding out in Lethean Manor against undead who - for some strange reason - are not trying very hard at all to break in.

She does like it when a plan comes together.

Count Tiriac was not consulted before the rising occurred. Count Tiriac considers this a personal insult.

His wizard's Sending to Luvick, delivered ten minutes after the attack began, contains a fixed-sum demand of wergild for every subject of his already slain, though he does not count the Razmirani (excepting those natives of Varno who took menial jobs in the administration), plus additional sums for each killed after the message was delivered and for the physical damage done to the streets of his town

Will there be a promise of payment, or will the second most powerful vampire in Ustalav (presently donning his armor) need to have words with the first?

Sigh. Yes, we'll pay you for the lost prey, as long as you don't attempt to fight on Razmir's side.

Then the Count of Varno sees no particular reason to intervene in this private affair.

Ardeal, like Varno almost ungarrisoned, falls almost immediately; Versex puts up a much stiffer fight -

- In the winding streets of Rozenport, Emerald is pretty sure he's going to die. He ran out of silver for his rapier ten minutes after the fight started, and he's used most of his spells and his magical reserves keeping the blade blazing, sword dancing as he chants his last spells - the skeletons are pressing in as the Sons of Flame try to fight defensively back to the citadel, he and Agate in the front row and Brass and Jasper hurling spells from behind - he's got one of the spawn, the man wouldn't die but Agate's done his work, claw out and furious half again the size of a normal man with his flaming axe cutting them down, eyes alight with the battle-lust that Emerald has the job of shaking off him, but Agate's going to die as soon as the transformation ends and the skeletons are still piling on -

- Emerald's fine with where he's going, but Agate and Brass aren't, and Jasper is already down and gasping with an arrow in his throat and they're out of potions - 

- The last spawn and the skeletons go down under Brass's carefully-hoarded fireball, clearing the skeletons out, and then there's just the vampire laughing in her black armor with her deadly sword and huge shield and Emerald is very sure he's going to die when she meets her eyes and her will presses down on his and drags him onwards and he "obeys" and then halfway through he's outright charging, he has one Shocking Grasp left he can channel through his sword but that won't do it by itself because she's too tough and he can't hit because of her armor but if he can just get a little lucky -

—and there's a feeling like an arm around his shoulder, and new strength, if he wants it, fire in his mind and his limbs and his sword, and a sense that he's good enough, he can do this, carry on never lose hope never stop fighting win—

And he moves faster than he could ever have dreamed and gets the vampire through the throat, which would, obviously, not kill it, because it's already dead, until his sword erupts in holy lightning and the vampire screams and disintegrates, boiled away into a gas that seeps and bubbles down into the sewers.

(This is not, actually, the first time that Iomedae unexpectedly granted someone paladin powers in order to kill her.)

Right, first step. He puts one hand on Jasper's throat and pulls the arrow out and heals, then heals Agate twice, patting him on the shoulder as he calms down from rage to exhaustion.

(Brass surveys the situation. "We should steal her armor."

"Yeah," says Agate, "if you haul it."

"Come on, team," says Emerald. "Let's get back to base before another one of these shows up.")

- As said, Versex puts up a much stiffer fight, eventually managing a successful evacuation of the surviving priests and even many of their soldiers with Teleport and Plane Shift before the citadel falls.

Ironically, it is rebellious Amaans that held out best of Razmir's counties. The Twins had alternated which governed and which attempted to put down the resistance, and though Eike went out hunting for Pharasmins that night (never to return to be seen by mortal eyes), between the massive garrisons suppressing the Pharasmins of Kavapesta and the strike teams of hunting outsiders searching the hills for rebels who who could return in the hour of greatest need, the citadel of Kavapesta holds out until dawn, when the maimed remnants of the garrison are relieved by the sun.

And the Witch of Flames, presently resident in Sinaria with her own garrison to fight off any demons that cross the Worldwound line, sneers at the vampiric incursion. Let Siervage come face her himself, if he desires; the hungry flames of Koldunya Ognya, slavemaster of a thousand kingdoms and pretender to Baba Yaga's crown, will give him something to fear.

(It is not, actually, anywhere near as easy a fight as that makes it sound, but only Razmir and the Queen of Irissen have ever before defeated her, and even if some of the Sons of Flame are on assignment elsewhere, much, always, is with her, and a force sufficient to hold the line against stragglers from across the Worldwound is usually a force sufficient for other purposes, also. Her losses are significant, but so are her foes'.)

Barstoi lasts longer than most; Count Neska is no friend of the undead, and the discipline of his knights is iron, but his county does have one serious disadvantage. He banned arcane magic, many years ago, and though he's experimented recently with having a few wizards closely bound to his service, they are still mostly green and untrained. Pharasma's priests are not fighters, and Iomedae's paladins are too few. He needs casters, Lawful casters he can trust, and he needs them now.

He does so reluctantly, having seen Hell and its works for what they really are, but on the reccomendation of one of his remaining Hellknights, his priest casts a Sending to the one country that might be able to help.

We're a little busy right now!

(We suggest that you get the Abyss out of there, really.)

He does not abandon his county, and dies a hero's death.

Odronto falls nearly as fast as Caliphas; the Count's own soldiers, and the Count himself, are suspiciously absent from the fight.

And where, in all this fighting, is Razmir? Where is the living god, who travels accompanied by flights of kytons and inevitables, and can open gates from world to world, the master-conjurer with his legions thrown hither and yon and his staves of every divine spell conceivable and his personal armies? The vampires may be deadly, but the difference between an army alone and one backed by the most powerful wizard on the continent is tremendous.

Well, he's -

- A little busy.

Before Razmir was fifth circle, when he was a stumbling petty wizard, one of the parts of the world of his youth that he asked "wait, why isn't this everywhere?" was ritual magic. With rituals you could work power greater than a single mage could channel on his own, drawing on the power of the planet and the stars, shifting tectonic plates and astronomical convergences, the coming together and splitting of planes to fuel spells with continent-wide effect radiuses. Thassilon had used ritual magic to lend strength to the arms of its slaves, ward away plagues, guide every aim to greater accuracy, and the man who would become Razmir did not really know why that hadn't happened here.

The answer, of course, was economies of scale. Ritual magic sufficient to ward a village required four perfectly-coordinated spellcrafters, and each tier of magic beyond that required (if you wanted to do it right) two rituals of the previous tier to balance it. For a ninth circle ritual that might, say, wipe out every last bacterium of a particularly dangerous plague on the planet, or trigger a well-prepared ascension to godhood, you needed more than sixty thousand casters, with the floor skill of that of the typical Chelish worldwound graduate and (for the four most powerful) peak skill of the least typical Chelish worldwound graduate, as well as specialized training in ritual magic that most wizards never got. The continent-wide Lung Wa empire of Tian Xia had a thriving ritual magic tradition, and it thought the idea of a seventh circle ritual to be a matter of extraordinary legend.

Razmir did not have that option.

The option he did have? 

Half-ass it.

And if you can't half-ass it, quarter-ass it.