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The issue begins with the journal of Diocoles, Mage of Baali, writing about how during the final years of the Angora Religious Wars, Baali was on the edge of facing defeat, since the heretics of the Icon River had united as one force to wage a war against Baali – the center and very core of the Baal Religion.
It was General Telias, follower of Ged, who led the assault against Baali. With their siege weapons and catapults, the city of Baali took on devastating blows, even as Diocoles and Grundar of Baal, watched their city crumble around them – impressed that the followers of Baal, despite facing defeat and starvation, stood ready to continue the fight to their very last breath. The General of the Baal army, General Zydrak joined the other two in watching the decimation of their city. With General Zydrak’s report, Grundar realizes the battle is truly lost and that all that was left was to pray for swift deaths at the hands of the Ged Worshippers. Diocoles offered another way – a way to bring Baal back into Anoria, a feat the others thought impossible since the banishment of the gods.
Diocoles explains that, though the gods have been physically banished from Anoria, he had uncovered a way to bring the essence of Baal back into Anoria. Grundar acknowledged that if it would save his people, he would then take the risk – no matter the cost, for there was nothing to lose.
So they took General Zydrak’s best soldier, a man named Kax, and strapped him on the ceiling. Painting runes upon his chest, Diocoles muttered the enchanted words and suddenly with a loud explosion, Kax exploded into flames as a loud bolt struck down from the heavens. However, the man that walked through the flames was no longer Kax – if only in body, his spirit, now possessed by none other than Baal.
Baal summoned Zydrak, Diocoles and Grundar, informing them that they would take their few remaining men and strike at the followers of Ged two hours before sunrise. When Zydrak questioned the idea, stating there was barely enough men to defend Baali, Baal slapped him away saying that they would kill the followers of Ged while they slept, and that such an attack was unexpected, and thus would be successful.
The scene shifts to outside Baali’s walls, where we see the followers of Ged have established a small camp, all too eager to end the war tomorrow. However, for the followers of Ged that dared to attack Baali – their tomorrow would never come as the Baali Soldiers snuck through the night and murdered the would be conquerors as they slept – most of them only waking up seconds before being killed.
After the brutal and bloody victory, Baal then commands that his followers now take the fight to the followers of Ged – and that so long any who do not worship Baal faithfully exist – they are to be considered a threat and either converted or destroyed.
However, when Baal marches his men into the homes of the Ged followers – when Zydrak reports that the men of Ged are being executed and that the women and children have been taken – Baal commands that they murder the women and children as well, and burn and salt the fields, because they lacked the men to watch this territory and that they were to keep pressing on.
The war continued to sweep up the Icon River, destroying forces far larger than their own; when Zydrak questioned the idea of executing so many citizens, including women and children; Baal explained that war is not clean and that they would spread war and despair throughout all Anoria.
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