Lost Cities (Pt 1)

Chicago. Do you remember Chicago? Yes, it used to be along Lake Michigan before the war. You remember the war don’t you? It wasn’t so long ago now was it? Most of the wounds are healed now, although humans won’t return to Africa for a few generations, maybe longer. But I diverge, we’re talking about lost cities aren’t we. Chicago to be exact. I wasn’t there when Chicago was lost. No one from South America was, that though, is another story.
We were losing the war at that point. It had just hardly begun of course but the Exalts had not even begun to organize. A lot of mistakes were made back then. The Americans suffered greatly at times. There was a deathland in the center of the city. That’s what we called links between here and the other side. Not Shadowland like the Exalts. Of course the police and then even the military couldn’t handle the sudden surge of darkness and death. Heck even the Exalts couldn’t stop them then. They sent their best people in and not even half made it out. They still won’t even say how many of theirs they left behind. I’ll just remind you the 4th Legion went in and now they only guard the central Manses and retain the postfix Remnant. If I had to guess they didn’t want to fall back, that’s why so many died but in the end even with the American military they couldn’t stem the flow. I don’t know exactly who made the decision that was made. It could have been one of many people, or all of them, but at some point someone realized that we weren’t gonna win that day. We needed more time to organize and to train. The Exalts could stand their ground if they had time to get structured coherent force together.
There weren’t any nukes left and some of the more esoteric weapons which were developed and used later in the war-yes, that’d be the Paris-Arnhem strikes you’re thinking of; no the 6 Counties was different, but at this point all we had was sorcery and a few shaken or devastated sorcerers left to use it. All the experienced ones died when we nuked Australia, biggest waste of resources that humanity has ever seen that was. I am digressing again though, this is Chicago we are talking about. Well turns out only one sorcerer of any significance was still alive in the city. She was the nominal head of the Exalted forces there, being a Solar and all, but mostly since she was a sorc she left that fighting in the hands of others. Well at this point things were real bad, most of the legion forces were pinned down, a couple of Dragon Bloods had died covering retreats already, that sort of thing. The local forces were pretty much gone trying to just stymie the overflow and limit the numbers of undead swarming out. Once they went no one was gonna hold out. The legion originally went down to help get civilians out, meant to be a good will gesture with the nominal American government. At this point they were in over their heads and still hadn’t gotten all the civilians out and were in re-rout conditions. I reckon they fell back only because to stay there would eliminate any resistance until northern Wisconsin.
So she did the only thing left to do. She pushed the city Elsewhere. This had to have been contemplated prior to the actual spell being cast but the act of doing it was done in haste and some disarray. The only person who is still alive from the group which cast it is her, the soldiers with her perished in the intervening years. Mars was at its closest the night she cast it. The next time we’ll see the city is when Mars is closest to us again, yes that long. Some of the Exalts’s children may live to see it, they won’t, we surely won’t. However everything in there remains as it is, just waiting for that day. That’s the story of Chicago in a nutshell. What? I branched off in that story? Would your ol’ grandpa do something like that?