You rise up before the soldiers, displaying your full terrible glory. Your head peers up over the wall, Desecrator is as long as a horse, each of your claws seems big enough to eviscerate a horse. Your eyes glow with a hatred beyond anything mortals can fathom, and your carapace positively writhes with sigils that whisper of death and suffering. But these men find some hidden reserve of courage. Perhaps it is an effect of the dream you have inflicted upon them – those who would flee before horror have already done so. Those who remain are the ones with iron souls. They tremble, but do not break.
And so you fill your voice with a bit of magic, and command them. “Kneel.” You say, not demanding it, not shouting it, simply stating it as though this is the way it should be. About a hundred men – a quarter of the soldiers who remain – do kneel. Many others tremble, and start to shift. But they turn upon those who obeyed their command, and once more former comrades and friends and allies turn on each other in a bloody battle.
The specters and wisps of the wisp wights charge forth, slashing with spectral claws, throwing rocks, and shrieking maddeningly. But they are not strong enough to kill many, and the blades of the soldiers – many seem to have been blessed – sting them enough that they retreat, only having killed ten or fifteen men. You growl in frustration. These men have proven annoyingly stubborn, almost as much as the Spears. And you lack wards, buried undead, invisible thorn walls this time.
But you do have the Hunters…they sprint along rooftops, weapons in hand, and they put your blessings to good use, finding the men who rally the resistance, killing them with well-placed arrows and dodging the desperate retaliations with unnatural agility. They kill nearly thirty men, half of them priests, before withdrawing, and this sudden onslaught of death causes many to throw down their weapons and flee. Your converts are forced into a knot, but the fighting seems desultory – neither side really wants to kill the other.
Lurrothel begins to reach into the city, raising some zombies. The corpses of fallen madmen are the only ones easily available, and she only manages to raise ten or eleven of them and send them slowly shambling towards the fighting. You add your own strength to her efforts, and over two hundred zombies join the attack, although they are too distant to do much right now.
Meanwhile, in the bastions by the river, the Seducers and your followers kneel and pray. Hearing the carnage – the sounds are faint, but seem very loud indeed to the terrified people – many join them, whispering fervent prayers, unknowingly offering their strength to the cause of their terror. There is little enough to gain from each head, but there are nearly four hundred heads.
As the fighting on the wall turns to a total stalemate, the attack begins. You make the first move, grabbing the wall with two of your hands and pulling yourself up onto it like a man pulling himself up a ledge. With Desecrator you cut down entire squads of men. Many rise as weeping swords to attack their comrades. One priest, wielding a staff in one hand and a sword in the other, shouts some prayer. It stings a bit, and his blade stings more.
But as you fight, the specters and wisps return, shrieking as they once more run amok among the soldiers, again mostly just tearing cloth and getting attention. Which means the crushers and brutes get almost to the gate before they are noticed. The gate does not hold for very long under their armored fists, and your army pours in just as the undead from within the city begin to swarm up the wall.
Now priests and soldiers begin to surrender, throwing down their weapons. Some are killed where they stand by your forces who are eager for blood. Other soldier-thralls ignore the fighting, recognizing that it is finished, and begin to loot the town. And some – including the one who managed to hurt you a bit, try to organize and cut their way through the zombies.
You let them, and allow them to meet the brutes and the crushers below. The resulting fight is short, messy, and very loud. The sole survival is that brave, defiant priest, still shouting curses and prayers, mingling them in the same sentence, even with his legs shattered into pulpy ruins.
In the end, ninety-seven soldiers and seventeen priests have surrendered to your army. You lost one specter (cut in two by a blessed blade), nearly a hundred zombies, and exactly three spear-thralls. One of the brutes was also somewhat injured, although it will heal without issue. You make the priests Dark Priest immediately.
Of course, there are still the bastions to consider. Not all are under your full control, and they are very heavily fortified. They are also isolated, and as full of your followers as a rotten fruit is full of worms. And you may have a special fate in mind for that brave priest…
By sheer chance, there is a stable of horses in the house nearest the walls. You kill several of them, raise them, and grant them to the god-slayers and Duthrax.
Full status
Current Status
Name: Klx-Dryklfx
Time: 6.75 months
Physical Might: 69+6 (+3 slaughter, +4 worship, -10 zombies, -3 injuries)
Mental Might: ] 70+6 (+3 slaughter, + 4 worship, -10 zombies, -2 corruption )
Followers
13 Boneys, 37 thralls, 197 hundred Spear-Thralls, 106 Sword-Thralls, and 126 Archer-Thrall, 8 seducers, 149 peasants, 121 guards, 10 Hunters, 1 High Seducer, 15 Doom-Seekers, 2 Doom-Seers, 19 Dark Priests, 5 god-slayers(mounted)
Servants
17 wisp wights, 8 armored brutes, 2 crushers, 431 zombies, 67 skeletons, 50 wisp wretches, 89 weeping sores, 17 specters
Cults
The Broken
Members: 13 Boneys, 13 Thralls, 197 hundred Spear-Thralls, 106 Sword-Thralls, and 126 Archer-Thrall, 15 Doom-Seekers, 2 Doom-Seers, 19 Dark Priests, 5 god-slayers(mounted), 97 guards
Resources: 89(+12 looting)
Power: 22 (12 spent worshipping you, 3 spent slaughtering villages, 4 spent forging, 5 spent gathering resources)
The Ceaseless Consumption
Members: 8 seducers and 24 thralls, and 37 peasants split among 8 locations, 1 high seducer, 114 peasants, and 24 soldiers
Resources: 0
Power: 10 (1 spent worshipping you, 2 spent constructing bastions, 4 spent negotiating/recruiting, 3 spent spreading rumors)
Fortresses
Canord
Strong walls (45), Deep moat (25), Thorn Wall (25), Weak wards(15), Traps(15) Demonic crops, plentiful mines, Strong aura of domination
Avar
Basic Walls(20)
Champions
Kreth Woemaker
Physical might: 12
Mental might: 12
Other: Magic Cloak
Duthrax Soul-Render, First of the Thrall-Herds
Physical might: 7 + 1
Mental might: 3 + 1
Other: Duelist, skilled commander, zombie horse Herald
Lurrothel, Weaver of Nightmares
Physical might: 1
Mental might: 6
Other: Necromancer, skilled at wards and dream magic