Anauroch Desert, by the Shadow Sea encircled by the Scimitar Peaks.
The fallen City of Shade was being salvaged with all haste under the command of its Arcanists.
Though they had been cut off from the Material Plane's Weave and could only rely on the sparse Shadow Weave here to maintain the bare minimum of power, the Arcanists cultivated through Netheril's educational system were not overly dependent on the Weave itself.
Because of the harsh environment and meager resources of the Shadow Plane, Shado had also preserved Netheril's late-stage wartime military social structure in order to ensure the continuation of civilization.
It was also thanks to this political structure that, despite having just suffered such a devastating blow and a natural disaster, the people of the City of Shade displayed little grief. Instead, with numb expressions, they carried out rescue work like clockwork automatons.
Watching this incomparably "harmonious" scene from midair as he continued rising higher to survey everything, Shado could not help but feel proud.
He believed it was inseparable from the iron-fisted policies he had steadfastly enforced.
This was merely a temporary setback. Give him, Shado, a century, and he was confident that, relying on the Material Plane's abundant resources, he could restore Netheril to more than twenty percent of its former heights.
What a pity this place is still nothing but yellow sand. If there were a civilized city-state here, we could enslave it. With its manpower and resources, combined with our City of Shade's advanced arcane research, the process would certainly be much faster.
Just as Shado was thinking this, a patch of green suddenly appeared in his field of vision.
His feline pupils widened slightly.
In his view, the Standing Stone Plain—which, in the depths of his memory, should have long since been a barren