Reunion

General Summary

Snow is already a foot deep and the temperature rapidly dropping as winter stakes its claim on the region. A thick blizzard is falling during the absolute dead of night and Lord Tyrwin takes his turn at watch from the village's tower. He's joined by Perceval Macklain who is happy to share his life story and the reason he set out alone to make something of himself.

Tyrwin reassures the young soldier and listens closely to his story about being turned away from Ghal Pelor's army and eventually finding himself in the employment of this distant village's small guard. He sends what money he can back to his family in the farmlands. Tyrwin tells him that's as noble a cause as any.

Perceval halts the conversation and points to the east, directing Tyrwin's attention to movement in the dark. There's too much snow and shadow to see anything clearly so he orders Perceval and several scouts to investigate. Too much time passes before they answer and Tyrwin wakes the rest of the heroes to go with him and find out what's happening out there.

Gero complains that it's past 3AM and he's too tired for this but he, along with the others, wake and follow the trail of the scouts. What they find is a single scout in the process of being torn apart by ghouls. They manage to save her and she lets them know that Perceval and the others are fleeing through the woods, being chased by some of the bat-like ogre sized ghouls that they've encountered before. She also tells them they spotted a massive hoard of ghouls coming this way and that the creatures have split into two packs, one looking to attack the eastern front and the other wheeling around to the north to skirt along the lake and breakthrough there. The heroes race to save Perceval and his scouts before returning to Beacon Hill and sounding the alarm. Jafar Auloro uses his magic to summon a wall of flames to slow down the attackers coming toward the eastern front. Soon, the city is backlight by the glow of an inferno that spreads through the entire eastern border outside the city.

The heroes rally what troops they have and send some to manage the eastern front and receive the eventual tide of ghouls that are working their way around the flames. The rest rush to the northern barricades ready to meet the enemy. The battle for Beacon Hill begins as more of the hulking bat-ghouls crash out of the sky and into the front lines hoping to disrupt them and clear the way for the wall to be torn down. Each of these beasts is nearly the size of three men and the shudder of fear they envoke chills the simple soldiers forced to stand against them. Tyrwin orders his ogre trio of Boggle, Wedge and Lil' Twist to meet the enemies head. To his surprise and the relief of the soldiers, the ogres hold the line and slowly manage to overcome each of the bat-things one by one.

The enemies attacking the northern front are forced to skulk and skitter further away from their intended breathrough point and breach northwestern corner of the wall instead, a narrow area clogged with buildings and trapped by Jafar's web spells. A trio of etheric ghosts are sent through first along with a captured and soul-wracked banshee. The heroes immediately order back the soldiers and move to take their place against this spectral force. Jasmine and Dunric take them head on while Tyrwin uses various different prayers to Sandor to weaken them. The banshee's tortured scream echoes over the battlefield, though far from full strength due to the binding process that captured her, it's more than enough to reduce Jasmine and Artemesia to convulsing wrecks near death. Dunric slays several of the spirits but not before the banshee drifts over and grips him about the throat. His entire body withers to dust in her ghostly hand, leaving nothing but a suit of armor and an echoing scream.

Jafar and Gero watch in horror as Dunric is murdered and that's when Gero makes a confession to his Necromancer ally. He tells Jafar that he made a deal with Balam several weeks back. The demon needed help breaking a curse that Tyrwin placed on it and Gero offered to use his mind-controlling magic on a reliquary guard and retrieve a scroll to break the curse. Balam owed him a favor for that and Gero was willing to call it in now for the sake of bringing Dunric back to life and bolstering their weakening numbers. Jafar reluctantly agrees. There is a flash of hellfire and agonized wailing as infernal magic pulls Dunric's soul and body back together. Dunric is left naked and whimpering on the ground where he died and Balam tells Gero that his favor is paid. They are even now.

Dunric collects himself enough to break the horror of his ordeal and runs off to rearm and armor himself. Tyrwin slays the rest of the spirts along with Jasmine's help after healing her. Gero goes to tend to Artemesia's wounds and get her back into fighting form.

Meanwhile, the ghouls claw and rip a portion of the northwestern wall down and filter in. As soon as they breakthrough the first wave are snagged by webs and burnt to cinders by Jafar's fireball. Though, it's only a matter of time before more rush in to take their place, led by Roshana Auloro herself. Jasmine and Jafar's mother. She brings with her their uncle Balik, long since turned into a powerful wight and another undead slave. Gilgorath, long believed dead, is now forced to serve her as well. His tortured howls echo over the northern front. "You left me!" The two wights are further bolstered by one of the Ghoul nobility in his tattered regalia of royalty and powerful ogre-ghoul wielding a hooked chain and massive cleaver.

Boggle, Wedge and Lil' Twist batter their way through to support the main line in the Northwest corner, murdering a Bat-Ghoul beast on the way that had paralyzed Tyrwin and likely saving his life from the creature's attacks. They slam into the undead wights, pushing back Balik and Gilgorath. Roshana Auloro uses her magic to incinerate the remaining troop regiment on the northwestern front. Her Quickened Fireball and Chain Lightning spell reap wounds all across the field of battle. All the while she tells her children, Jasmine and Jafar, to surrender the Lich-King's hand and she'd order back this hoard, sparing everyone.

Tyrwin and Jasmine confront Roshana but her protective weave of magic makes her very difficult to strike. In an effort to incapacitate her daughter she uses a maximized Vampiric Touch to rip gouts of blood from Jasmine and restore any damage dealt to her. Despite the wounds Jasmine never relents. She animates the many dead townsfolks to hurl against her enemies and attacks her mother feverishly.

Meanwhile, the ghoul's on the eastern front finally reach the walls and breach them. A hungry tide of teeth and claws pour through along with two more of Jasmine and Jafar's kin. Gulshan and Kaspaer. Gero and Jafar weaken the ghouls with fireball spells before the enemy hits the frontlines. Kaspaer, an accomplished fire mage as well, burns soldiers alive with his flames and nearly kills Rewyn as well. Gulshal, reluctant to be involved in his mess at all, hastes several of the undead and also burns soldiers and townsfolk alike with her fire spells. Jafar's uses his own Necromancy to raise several of the dead ghoul-bat things and orders them to take flight and bolster the eastern front. Over half of the defenders here are killed but they manage to subdue Gulshan and and Kaspaer thanks to support from Jafar and Gero.

The heroes breath a sigh of relief as the tide is slowly turning in their favor. It's then that they all feel a gust of wind and hear the splintering of one of the safehouses that some of the citizens have been hiding in. To the south a dark shape is now perched upon ruin. They saw it before, months ago, when they first visited Beldon. A dessicated bat-like horror easily the size of a dragon. Its screech deafened and nauseated Rewyn, soldiers and citizens alike. The heroes fought back against the pain to stare the creature head-on. And, to notice that a rider was mounted on its back

The creature lept off the building and battered Artemesia nearly to death. Tyrwin began toward it, looking to halt the creature's advance before he was stopped in his tracks. The rider dismounted and in that moment Tyrwin recognized the sword he carried as an old Balmoran longsword and the rider himself as a friend thought long dead. Though pale, dressed now in only black coat and garments, and with a sour, cold disposition Tyrwin was certain. It was his best friend, his battle brother from the time of the @Fae War... Theodore Cross. The man now seemed to have a control over the undead that surpassed any necromancer. He could speak to and command any mindless dead with but a thought and nothing more. He used his longsword to wound Jafar deeply. Tyrwin tried to reason with his old friend and to find out why he was doing this. In a sad and sullen tone, Cross answered.

While you slept away the centuries my old friend, I was here. I walked every corner of this ruined world looking for a way to save it, looking for some hope to hold on to. There's none. There's nothing left. You've seen it too, I know you have. There's nothing either of us can do to save this place. Tairos has to die. It deserves that. It deserves our mercy. Let me do this.
— Theodore Cross to Tyrwin Daybringer

Cross tells Jafar that he knows he has the Hand in his bags. He says he has no interest in killing anyone here, that he tried to do this without shedding blood. When Jafar refuses to hand over the artifact Cross gestures in simple fashion to the Ghoul-Ogre and it slams into Jafar, chopping and slicing with its cleaver and chains. The battlefield is quiet for a moment aside frim Jasmine's scream as she watches her brother die. Cross claims the relic from Jafar's body and remounts his creature. The others try to stop him but they're little they can do. Cross leaves, with the Hand of Zharkaddos in his possession, back for Beldon.

The heroes held Beacon Hill but the cost paid was steep. They look now to tend to their wounds, mourn the dead and await the army's arrival. The Siege of Beldon is soon to begin