Asher''s forces pierce the storm surrounding the keep, only the strongest of his flock manage to overcome the storm, and at the eye of the storm he sees the creature that tricked him holding someone''s head. The closer one gets to the eye of the storm, the harder the fighting, as anyone who isn''t getting swept up by it is determined to kill their enemies. Asher is no different in the regard, he lands on the balcony with a thunderous entrance, and sees the mermaid retreat back into an oddly submerged throneroom.
"NIGHTMARE! YOU CANNOT 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 can even be heard outside the storm, but his opponent isn''t buying it. The submerged throneroom doesn''t reveal his opponent ready to face off... until Asher sees the outline of a large mermaid floating cautiously to the stairway. Asher puts up chase through the water, and breathes fire in front of him to annihilate 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 late that he was tricked, and feels someone putting a collar around his neck. The dragon backs off out of the throneroom in a panic, blasting fire everywhere as he does so. Esstrey is refusing to let go of the collar, even as Asher is back on the safe balcony. A passing drake sees his father panicking, and notices that the large mermaid on his back seems to be the problem, the mermaid spots him, and taunts him. A gout of fire is the response to the mockery, but while his father is resistant to fire, the collar isn''t. The collar 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 collar.
Esstrey is barely inside, and a signal is broadcast to all Malencian troops through their radios.
"All callsigns this is overlord actual, special order zero-five-zero is in effect, all units are clear to engage." ''Weapons'' not meant for urban warfare is cleared for usage with those words, initially the plan was to restrict the usage of heavy weapons to the depopulated slums, but that area got overrun too quickly to formulate a defense.
Before those weapons can arrive, the broadcast gives a morale boost all across Malencia. Especially in the noble district does the defense turn ferocious as they saw Asher''s corpse crash from the keep. Liquidators low on magical energy affix bayonets 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 can while she stabs the flying lizards with her spear. Under her personal command the air situation improves somewhat, and the liquidators and devastators seeking to make a comeback on the ground no longer need to walk looking up.
In one of the bigger forts, paladins 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 Malencians attempt their counterattack, but the soldiers of Faerune are now on the defense. Bullets are stopped by raw magical power, and anyone that tries to get within the fort is cut down. The few injuries that the Malencians manage to inflict are healed off by the priest retinues, and adventurers of every stripe aim their weapons to the sky in an effort to repel Zha''klos and her offensive.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Their combined efforts are successful, the Malencians fail to break through, and pay for their failure in blood. The fortified position holds for now, and the recent 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 regular soldiers stationed at the fort sally forth to scavenge weapons from the fallen liquidators, a practice seen as illegal at best, and heretical at worst by their superiors. No one mentions anything, the paladins or the local commanding officers at the front aren''t stingy with some extra firepower.
"I fucking hate this... this has got to be hell with all the demons flying about, I just wanna go home." The complaints 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 paladins on the walls respond quickly to the new enemies, and launch spears of light at the liquidators. Rather than scorching them heavily, the spears of light cleave clean through their targets, something that doesn''t happen on normal humans. The liquidators that aren''t destroyed raise their rifles in a synchronized yet sloppier way, and the bullets bounce off the barrier yet again.
"Undead! Strike them down!" The paladins are all too familliar dealing with the various profane problems plaguing the world. Yet, the undead rattles them as it is a new addition to the Malencian forces they have not encountered 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 paladins ready for another attack with spears of light on the undead, but instead get hit with blasts of necromantic magic that cleaved through the barrier. To pierce both paladin and barrier requires great skill not found in the common undead or even a necromancer.
"Lich!" One of the paladins calls out, and various cloaked liches begin firing on the defenders. The necromancers of Malencia included plenty of liches, and have been offered complete pardon along with backing for any of their experiments in exchange for their aid. Normally they wouldn''t consider such a deal, but even from prison these gathered old bones felt the shift in the winds, and much preferred conditional freedom over their old circumstances.
Adventurers and priests rush to the walls to reinforce the paladins 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 facing a combined force of paladins and adventurers. Unbeknownst to the more combat capable defenders of the fort, the liches did not come alone. The undead brought back are a noisy bunch, their groans and screams very effective at filling the air with useless noise. The screams of the slower priests are heard too late as they never made it to the wall, a Malencian surveillance caught up to them first. The creatures shift out of the shadows and wreak havoc on the priests and wounded in the center of the camp alike, and soon enough there are no more wounded. As the adventurers and paladins return to the ruined center in an attempt to save the priests, all they find is newly resurrected dead by two liches who were smuggled in alongside the surveillance team.
The rest of the liches that were outside the wall snuck inside from one of the hidden tunnels dug by liquidators, fully surrounding the Faerune troops. 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?"