Prickly

  The capital of Faerune is in ruins, and the enemy has yet to reach its heart. Monsters, horrors, demons, undead, and revolutionaries. All of them storm the streets, attag the defenders as they pass. They don't seem too ed with destroying the enemies in front of them, they all have their orders, as their entire movement is like a ductor's song. That ductor would be dell, he made plenty of attas, and the only things he has more of than attas is targets and resources. Such a situation made the man initially creative, now it makes him experiehe wide variety of troops gives him options, and the simplistic military hierarchy and division designed by Esstrey makes plenty of those options feasible. Initial attacks are made by the air force, multiple Zveno's circle the city, feeding an uing supply of demons high off lifeforto the fight. Devastators backed by liquidators charge into the fire and fmes left behind, determio destroy their thrown off enemies. Surveilnce covers their more visible allies, determi out anyone hiding for the auxiliaries to finish off.

  Faerune won't go down without a fight, adventurers seeking glory, fn volunteers seeking to halt the nightmare, meraries bought with the deep pockets of the king, and anyone uhe king's banner left standing. The churches lost their power with the defeat of The Grand Army, but among the fn volunteers is aire division worth of padins from The Order of Melthazar. All these powers are fident in their strength against two [Mythic] threats, one a mindless iion that births armies, another a singur entity capable of leading worlds to ruin with one's worst fears. The Hero, Asahi is missing in all this, he was st spotted fleeing to the gate, the source of power for the king, and the ultimate goal of Malencia in all this.

  A squad of liquidators is the first to breach the pace. Usually a group from surveilnce would be the first in any situation, but Faerune has been fighting Malencia long enough to be familliar with their surveilnits. Expeg this result, Malencia had assigned more units from the various military arms to infiltration, and a group of 'lucky' liquidators is first through. They snu through an unguarded hidden escape tunnel, and their entry within the pace is met with little opposition, as most of the soldiers are defending the pace outside. Stealthily evading patrols, they mao get higher up in the pace, closer to the throne room.

  "ander Zulie, I know that we are doing well right now, but we 't ehe throne room. Without backup, we will just be sughtered by the royal guard." One of the soldiers points out to their current and, who dismisses it entirely.

  "We don't o go after the king ourselves, just sabotage as much of the defenses from here as possible, open reinforced windows, distract guards. If we do it right, this pce will be flooding with enough allies to storm the throne room." A sound enough pn, and one expected from one of the anders with a higher toleraing for the various allies of Malencia.

  The pn would have gone smoothly as well, if they weren't talking as loud as they were. One of the patrols noticed them, and is surprised to find them. He shouts in arm, and a shot is fired by one of the liquidators, the crack of gunfire is far louder and distinct than the shout of arm could be even with the battle outside. Zulie curses, and leads her troops deeper into the pace, away from security statio the entrance. Running through a hallway with pace guards hot oail, Zulie's rades occasionally fire a shot into the pursuers. Few of the shots have effect, but they do slow down the pursuers long enough for Zulie to begin opening windows like a madwoman. Anroup of guards cut them off, surrounding Zulie's squad on both sides. A nearby door leads to a baly, which gives Zulie an idea. She opens the door, and storms unto the baly with her squad, putting themselves in the worst defensive position imaginable.

  "HEY! HELP! HELP MEEE!" A cry for help, one filled with as much despair as Zulie muster, her squad momentarily looks behind them as they see their ander shout like a madwoman. Unbeknownst to the pace guard, someone does respond to the cry for help.

  A swarm of demons, attracted by the delicious call for help and despair. They are only momentarily surprised that the caller and the people they are allowed to attack are different, usually no one dares py the damsel in distress around demons. The surprise doesn't st as long for the demons as it does for the pace guard, their formation scatters as multiple flying demons of lower rank crash into them, and the squad of liquidators rush through the gap made to run deeper into the pace. The pace guard is dealing with the lesser demons quickly, but more stream through the windows Zulie opened earlier, slowing them down further. As for the squad of liquidators, they are currently following the shine of a peculiar rock Zulie was given for this mission. It begins thten as they pass a room, and within they hear ting. Zulie gives a signal, and they quickly stack up on the door.

  "?...?...?... MARK!" The door crashes open as a liquidator kicks it down, ahrows a ister inside, while Zulie and the oh free hands cover and close the door afterward. Holding the door open for a few seds, they wait for the inhabitants to realize they are dealing with poison gas. The moment the noise of spell casting inside is heard, they open the broken dain, and fire a volley through the smoke. Any mage that is keeping the gas away from them gets shot, and the ohat wao focus on the liquidators aren't able to cast spells as they fall to the ground coughing. Regardless, it's a group of four non-mages against about a dozen mages, and a spike of ice floors one of the liquidators, disrupting their formation. Zulie throws a greween the mages, areats with her fallen rade out of the room. Muards approach from the hallway, having heard the otion, but before they make it in melee range of the liquidators...

  Shadows erupt from the walls, what Zulie and her squad had interrupted was the spatial prote that kept surveil bay. Now the unleashed being from The Beyond drag the guards into dark ers for lunch, and the shadows themselves begin to morph out of the walls and take shape. Multiple mid-ranking Beyond beings, they pass by Zulie's group and head into the room with the gassed mages. They were still rec from Zulie's rapid assault, and the creatures are instinctively good at dealing with mages. Zulie herself doesn't even look to firm that the mages are dead.

  "Shit... they got me good." One of her men, Jacob, lies bleeding on the floor. One of the men has already administered first-aid, and while it doesn't look great for him, she has seen worse being brought back from the hospital...she has been worse being brought back.

  "Mark, you're with me, Vi you stay with Jacob to make sure he lives." The squad splits up, normally leaving a wounded man within the pace is suicide, but Zulie has the feeling that it would be more suicidal to on the opposing force. Together with Mark she makes it to another baly, and looks to the skies for more demons, but not such luck. Mark points to the ground, and they see a group of liquidators made it to this side of the pace, but are bogged down by the byrinthian design of the courtyard. She gives a quick wave, and they throe to her. Tying it to the baly, the liquidators climb from the courtyard directly into one of the higher floors of the courtyard.

  A quick handshake between officers at the top, and together they make their way to the throne room. Slowly the pace bees more chaotic, as it seems the lesser demons really enjoyed Zulie's dispy that they started screeg loudly while opening windows, and the disgruntled surveileams are ahat someone else did their job better than them, so they now leave mutited corpses behind more often rather thaing them whole. Zulie's team of liquidators doesn't go unnoticed by enemies or allies, while making their way through the pace they enter a group of Mazurians as well, most likely one inating from the local guard sidering the Mazurians are wearing Faerune uniforms. It doesn't take long for them to find the throne room, as it's the only area actively avoided by all Malens.

  The rge door was already open, ready to ihem all in. Ohrone is an imposing man looking down on their group with mild disgust, but the royal guard isn't moving to intercept yet. Something is making them nervous.

  "Well if it isn't the first visitors of the day, to what do I owe the displ-"

  *BLIING*

  A shot resounds through the throne room, the oh a smoking barrel is her than Mark. Zulie wants to reprimand him, as its on practice for the throo be protected by a mighty barrier, but refrains from doing so as she sees Johannes Richter XXII having gone pletely silent, and g his heart. It seems that at some point his defenses were disabled, and he falls off the stairs leading to his throhout much fanfare.

  "Nice shot Mark." Zulie's anding voiterrupts the silence, and every Malen except the liquidators jump at the fused royal guard. She would have to give him a endation for defeating aire room of royal guards with a single shot.

  Prickly