Part 2 overall story arch

during a semiweekly meeting Alienna talks about what is happening right now (Dr. Hiller, lots of small side quets completed because of the new kids,sad and good news "only" 9 adventuring parties 31 people in total have died which is sad but less than last time they recruited new members, its been unusually quiet outside the city so be carefull when doing quests close to the border of the city) Since they are new all recent adventuring parties that have just gotten a quest a couple of days after the guild meeting where they will be sent to the edge of the city to learn about their defense mechanisms and to do some maintinance on the fence there. (their horn system goes from the outer edge to inner city and warn everyone about incomming threats.... first blow indicate danger level 1-4 second blow indicate amount of enemies)
While there and casually chatting with some of the guards panic will ensure as one guard in a watchtower will spot skeletons riding skeletion horses are making a b line for them at 80ft speed. The guards will blow the horn and the chain reactions will begin. The guards estimate that the people there can deal with the threat so they have 10 minutes to prepare.
After combat the guards and adventuring parties will talk for an x amount of time, making them not realise the skeleton army coming in making them late to warn the city.
When they do realise they suddenly need to hurry the guard will blow the horn again this time differently announcing an army of 25000 or more Of the 3 adventuring parties there, 2 of them will wann the closest villages while 1 of the parties ride back at full speed to fill in the army and guild about the situation. The guards will scout for additional information about the approaching army. (they will die)
(If they go warn villages do this otherwise skip) have the party visit 4 villages close by to warn them First village will require a little convincing 15 Persuasion check Second village will require no convincing Third village says to the party that they are in the middle of tending to their crops and if they stop to evacuate, they will lose a big chunk of their crops and wont be able to make it back before starving so they refuse to leave Fourth village are in the same situation as the third but can get convinced with 20 Persuasion check

An emergency meeting will be held and the army will be set into motion and the party will get the job of protecting some small towns around the main army from the few skeletons that split off from the main group. After this main big meeting everyone will be split into group to get individual tasks, the party will be with Julie Gif from the guild who will be assigning everyone to villages that will probably be in the armies path The following parties will be participating THE party Grogs funny disciples Mystics Light and Dark Party of Elements
All the parties will be responsible for a chunk of area outside the city and they will have to figure out for whom takes what villages they each wanna take there being 13 in total in the area they have been assigned after evacuating their designated villages they should go help the others
The party can either go defend 3 or 2 villages depending on what they discuss with the other parties but Julie will push for them to take more as they seem stronger than the rest or take the villages closer where there is likely to be more enemies
Village 1: The first village the party will arrive before the enemy army does and will be able to make preperations but it will also be the biggest army they will face. After the fight they can either hurry onto the next or rest first
Village 2: If they hurry they will make it just before the skeletons attack possibly saving everyone, if they rested first they will arrive to see the skeleton already being in the city and being in the middle of killing the villagers After the fight they can again wait or go as soon as possible
(Village 3: ) If they went as soon as possible twice they will again arrive just before the skeletons do being able to save them all If they rested once they will find the village in flames with skeletons in the middle of their attack If they rested twice they will come to find the village in flames, everyone dead and being able to see the skeleton army
After dealing with their own villages they will go help the other parties
Grogs funny disciples will have already dealt with their villages when the party goes to them or have just finished if they go to them first
Party of Elements The åarty are on their last village when the party arrives and see the party are raining hellfire and all sorts of magic from the sky onto the skeletons in the village that looks really bad from seemingly both the skeletons and the party
Light and Dark At first sight it seems like something went gruely wrong cuz they are nowwhere to be found but after a bit of searching it seems they are just slow and struggling at their first or second village depending on how many they have so the party can help if they so wish (throw in a few random enemies)
Mystics They come across the first of the mystics villages and find it to be evacuated and untouched same situation with the second village so it seems weird they are nowhere to be seen. At their last village however they figure out why as they see a giant of bones from all kinds of different creatures with runes engraved upon all of the bones and a giant skull for its head also engraved with runes that all light up ravaging their last village with crushed corpses everywhere. (DC 10 Arcane check will that all the lower runes seems to be connected to the runes on the skull, DC 15 will reveal the skull to be the source of the power for the rest of the body via the runes, DC 20 will reveal that the runes are ancient giant runes used to make equipment like part of your body making is easier to use and master)
After their entire area is secured they can all go join the main army or do whatever they please
The army will fight the skeleton army and fight throughout the night not suffering many casualties but still fighting for a long time The next days evening after the army hos gotten their rest after dealing with the skeleton army Markus Rú will hold a meeting to recap whats happened and what they will do now. The info gathered from the meeting (The army was around 15000 skeletons and other undeads breached our outer fence and was met with out army whom stood against the majorite of their forces while the stronger parties in our adventuring guild went in small teams to take out the strongest of the armies forces and the new parties in our guild went to defend and evacuate the villages surrounding the fighting. Markus will say that the veteran adventures are to do as many quests as they can while the new adventures need to help with recovering)
The party is along with other small adventuring sent out to check on losses from civilians in villages that have been ravaged by the undead army and deal with any stragglers they find. Visiting a couple of villages they find most of them to be in ruins of burnt to the ground but wierdly enough they dont find any bodies. Investigations of the villages will prove to find that although no bodies can be find, people were clearly here not more than a couple of weeks ago and they seemingly didnt bring anything with them. Every now and again blood spatter, dead undead or limbs can be found
When they go back to report it whoever they talk to will be displeased to hear it cuz theve gotten similair reports from all over and they have basically found no dead bodies
We are still counting the lossess of both civilians and military but right now estimates lay around 25000 civilian and 1500 military so needless to say it was an astounding victory. Now... we know they came from the swamp straight north of here where a lich resides but we dont know why it has gone on the offensive so we will be investigating and if what we are thinking turns out to be true we might be going on the offensive to try and reclaim some of the world.)
When they talk to Markus Rú they get the choice to either go and follow up on Dr. Hiller in Dullen (which is Part 4 overall story arch)
Or
Travel with another adventure party and follow the kidnapped civilians (which is Part 3 overall story arch) They chose the latter.... obviously