Prickly

  Asher's forces pierce the storm surrounding the keep, only the stro of his flock mao overe the storm, and at the eye of the storm he sees the creature that tricked him holding someone's head. The closer oo the eye of the storm, the harder the fighting, as anyone who isn't getting swept up by it is determio kill their enemies. Asher is no different in the regard, he nds on the baly with a thunderous entrance, ahe mermaid retreat bato an oddly submerged throneroom.

  "NIGHTMARE! YOU OT HIDE FROM ME! I WILL TEAR YOUR TAIL OFF AND ROAST IT FOR MY FALLEN KIN!" The furious voice of Asher booms over the battlefield, and even be heard outside the storm, but his oppo isn't buying it. The submerged throneroom doesn't reveal his oppo ready to face off... until Asher sees the outline of a rge mermaid floating cautiously to the stairway. Asher puts up chase through the water, and breathes fire in front of him to annihite the water between him and the shape. His charge is unstoppable, and as he gets closer, the shape dissipates like it never existed. Instead of the mermaid being there, it is simply something wicked in the shape of a maid, who proceeds to slither outside the keep through one of the windows.

  Asher realizes a moment too te that he was tricked, and feels someoting a colr around his neck. The dragon backs off out of the throneroom in a panic, bsting fire everywhere as he does so. Esstrey is refusing to let go of the colr, even as Asher is ba the safe baly. A passing drake sees his father panig, and notices that the rge mermaid on his back seems to be the problem, the mermaid spots him, and taunts him. A gout of fire is the respoo the mockery, but while his father is resistant to fire, the colr isn't. The colr itself and spots between the scales begin to light up as the thermite stuffed there by Esstrey serves its purpose. Asher roars in pain, while Esstrey dismounts the massive red dragon as he starts to fall down. Mid-fall, his neck is severed by the 2500°C colr.

  Esstrey is barely inside, and a signal is broadcast to all Malen troops through their radios.

  "All callsigns this is overlord actual, special order zero-five-zero is in effect, all units are clear to engage." 'ons' not meant for urban warfare is cleared for usage with those words, initially the pn was to restrict the usage of heavy ons to the depoputed slums, but that area got overrun too quickly to formute a defense.

  Before those ons arrive, the broadcast gives a morale boost all aalencia. Especially in the noble district does the defeurn ferocious as they saw Asher's corpse crash from the keep. Liquidators low on magical energy affix bayos as they prepare to make use of the morale disparity. In the chaos the drakes are hit hardest, Asher's death has not gone unnoticed, and the leaderless drakes panic as they aren't sure what to do. Zha'klos erupts from the smoke above the city deadset on dealing as much damage as she while she stabs the flying lizards with her spear. Under her personal and the air situation improves somewhat, and the liquidators aators seeking to make a eba the ground no longer o walk looking up.

  In one of the bigger forts, padins have taken over and are using it as a forward operating base. Priests tend to the injured, while soldiers of all types guard the occupied fort. Here too, the Malens attempt their terattack, but the soldiers of Faerune are now on the defense. Bullets are stopped by raw magical power, and ahat tries to get within the fort is cut down. The few injuries that the Malens mao inflict are healed off by the priest retinues, and adventurers of every stripe aim their ons to the sky in an effort to repel Zha'klos and her offensive.

  Their bined efforts are successful, the Malens fail to break through, and pay for their failure in blood. The fortified position holds for now, and the ret addition of corpses at their gates will deter attacks for now. Zha'klos is repelled as well, with some demons even being banished midair thanks to the expert aim of the adventurers. Some of the regur soldiers statio the fort sally forth to sge ons from the fallen liquidators, a practice seen as illegal at best, aical at worst by their superiors. No oions anything, the padins or the local anding officers at the front aren't stingy with some extra firepower.

  "I fug hate this... this has got to be hell with all the demons flying about, I just wanna go home." The pints of the soldiers are ignored along with their mild acts of heresy, they are being ignored so heavily that it wasn't even noticed that one of them was stabbed by one of the corpses.

  Death rattles turn to screams of pain and calls for aid as the liquidators previously assumed dead rise again to enact their vengeance upon the living. The padins on the walls respond quickly to the new enemies, and unch spears of light at the liquidators. Rather than scorg them heavily, the spears of light cleave through their targets, something that doesn't happen on normal humans. The liquidators that aren't destroyed raise their rifles in a synized yet sloppier way, and the bullets bounce off the barrier yet again.

  "Undead! Strike them down!" The padins are all too familliar dealing with the various profane problems pguing the world. Yet, the undead rattles them as it is a new addition to the Malen forces they have not entered yet. Sure enough, all corpses in front of the fort start rising as the dead get back up to assault the living. More corpses join the assault from nearby streets as the bustling city that was once quiet is forcibly shaken awake again. The padins ready for atack with spears of light on the undead, but instead get hit with bsts of neantic magic that cleaved through the barrier. To pierce both padin and barrier requires great skill not found in the on undead or even a neancer.

  "Lich!" One of the padins calls out, and various cloaked liches begin firing on the defenders. The neancers of Malencia included plenty of liches, and have been offered plete pardon along with bag for any of their experiments in exge for their aid. Normally they wouldn't sider such a deal, but even from prison these gathered old bones felt the shift in the winds, and much preferred ditional freedom over their old circumstances.

  Adventurers and priests rush to the walls to reinforce the padins on the walls, and the arrival of the adventurers alone already causes the liches to retreat. They are still a cowardly bunch by nature, and would face a hard time fag a bined force of padins and adventurers. Unbeknownst to the more bat capable defenders of the fort, the liches did not e alohe undead brought back are a noisy bunch, their groans and screams very effective at filling the air with useless he screams of the slower priests are heard too te as they never made it to the wall, a Malen surveilnce caught up to them first. The creatures shift out of the shadows and wreak havo the priests and wounded in the ter of the camp alike, and soon enough there are no more wounded. As the adventurers and padiurn to the ruined ter in an attempt to save the priests, all they find is newly resurrected dead by two liches who were smuggled in alongside the surveileam.

  The rest of the liches that were outside the wall snuside from one of the hidden tunnels dug by liquidators, fully surrounding the Faeruroops. To make matters worse, a strike team of demons charge through the barrier to join the encirclement, with Zha'klos having her spear aimed squarely at one of the mages, sealing the fate of the defenders.

  One of the adventurers raises his arms high as everyone prepares to attack.

  "D-do you guys accept surrender?"

  Prickly

  I gotta say, I'm pretty proud of myself of making the term 'Malen surveilnce' sound perfectly ominous and vague as a description for eldritch horrors that hide in shadows (under your bed is one of their favorite spots).

  If you have questions for a character, post it in the ents. They will try to ahe question to the best of their capability in the pre-author note chapter.

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