Seebo the Knife: The Darkness Descends

Let's recap a bit.

I'm on a boat heading for Xoth Sarandi to hit the Sea Gate and head for bigger and better things. I must have blacked out because I woke up in a forest, lying on the side of a hill. That's when it all began.

Six strangers brought together by a pre-ordained destiny met for the first time that night. They would form the Starborn, the force of Good meant to battle the Host for the fate of Ashfar. Looking at us, you wouldn't have guessed we would save the world.

Chillhame is where it all ended a thousand years ago and so that is where it all began that fateful night. In the coming days we learned about the dark dwarf army amassing and preparing to march on Chillhame. We had ten days to warn the entire island, not nearly enough time. But we did it. We warned them and when the army marched, everyone knew they were coming, we thought we were prepared.

Bronce, Lichgate, Lower Scumsgrove, Churney-on-the-Green, Hockton Barrow, Chalksmere, Vanondale and Saragost, we warned them all. Those who could fight, prepared. The rest evacuated to Saragost to prepare to defend. We even uncovered the hidden agents in the city, the Drow plots to set an explosive of some sort at the wall and also the poison for the water supply. None of it mattered in the end.

Saragost still fell. We boarded the ship Lady Arigane had provided for us and we fled.

Don't misunderstand though. When the battle started, we went out to do what we could to the army. We flanked them from the rear and started hitting their supply stations and even found a commander or two.

To beat down the gate, they didn't use the normal siege weapons you might expect. Rather they brought with them two dozen or so undead monstrosities. The ogre that was ambushing refugees on the road was big and bad, some of the dark dwarves were pretty big and bad, but nothing compared to these things. They were monstrously huge. Rygorh fought this thing on his own with me and Neil doing what we could to keep him alive with healing magic. Tilk charged in just a moment too soon to help Rygorh. The creature brought Tilk down with little effort but Rygorh, Neil and I just kept at it until it eventually fell.

Rumus had headed for the gate to help try and slow the army from breeching into the city. It was a valiant effort. When the gates gave way, it was all over. The force of the army was just too much, they had more numbers than we expected, they were better equipped and more organized. If you were going to march an army of ten thousand hundreds of miles to conquer a city, would you just lay down and die when you got there? Neither would they.

We still had hope though. We raced back to the city to see what kind of a defense Saragost was able to put up within the city. That was truly disheartening. The city was lost. The dark dwarves swarmed through the streets. We knew we had to make it away, if we fell here, the world would be lost to darkness.

As much as it hurt, as much as we wanted to stay and fight to the last man, we knew we couldn't. The Elensil would be ready to go when we got there. We took Tilk down to the Node just as we had for Alev only a few days before. We then made our way to the Sanctuary where Rumus had fled once the gate fell, informed Lady Arigane of what was happening and then we made for the ship.

It was heartbreaking to watch as we sailed away. The sounds of battle, the screams of men dying by the hundreds, the city set ablaze, it was all too much.

No matter how much we did to save them, no matter how hard we fought, the darkness still came and it was overwhelming. The true nature of what lay before us was all too apparent in the fading lights of the fallen Saragost.

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