Part 15

Sleepiborough

A settlement in the fertile farmland near the mountain. Nothing ever happens here, apart from some good deeds and the odd exchange of kind-hearted greetings. A disgusting pit of Hades in other words.

Based on some faulty information I had been fed but a kind, yet, now, ultimately dead, fly, we where under the impression that this was to be a campaign of hero smashing, it was not until a little way into the mission that we realised we where under siege by two highly experienced keepers, AND there was a hero fortress to the North.





We cleared out all of the gold in our immediate area, without too much concern for troops, under the impression we had all of time, to deal with the heroes in our surround Dungeon, it was shortly after we mined ourselves dry that our birds eye dungeon view provided us with the information that the two portals in some adjacent caves had been captured.





Worse, the two Keepers, Kalith, and Kei, where both much further trained than us, with many creatures under their command. Using our Sight of Evil spell, we spied out their gold reservs, and where well pleased with the result. Whilst they had adequate gold to keep themselves supplied, and training, for a long time, they had no gems, and as such, would have to rely solely on what was mined, and to ration for a period of low gold.

Whereas we had the regions gems under our immediate control.

There's an old saying, that says 'he who makes the gold, makes the rules' and such a rule, whilst not always accurate, in a war of resources, and a war of equals, all the gold in the world will keep your minions happy, and well fed, whilst theirs shall starve, and desert their masters.



We spied further out, towards the Hero temple in the North of the realm, it had only two rooms, a room full of unexperienced squires, who where all eager to prove their worth to their Lord, who guarded the Temple, and who would soon get their chance, and the main temple room held several experienced giants, and a fully mature, Lord of the Land, whom had survived many battles in his youth, and in his middle age. Now, in his old age, all he had left to tend was this temple to his god, which he was unaware of the lurking befoulment. But this was much in the future.. there where closer problems to deal with.



One of the main problems we faced in this realm was that our portal, whilst supplying us with creatures, did not supply us with the creatures we NEEDED, we had a constant supply of Warlocks, whilst few Mistresses, no Bile Demons, and absolutely no Dragons heeded our call.



Expanding East we discovered a prebuilt Workroom, with a highly experienced Troll, ready and eager to work for a new master.



With a full arsenal of rooms under our control, we decided to create a scavenger room to aid us in our fight, though we had plenty of minions, we wanted more.

We wanted theirs. We set most of our Mistresses and Warlocks to begin scavenging our enemies.

But we clearly wheren't the first to consider this..



But we would not be beat, though the dark gods had not yet cast their lot, we where determined to win their favour. Another old saying not oft heard these days is 'in for a penny, in for a pound' which, loosely translated means 'If you're going in for a little, go all out'

And we did, again, instead of holding back, we set all of our warlocks to scavenging, hoping to hunt the hunter. It suceeded immensely.





Through our scavenging efforts, we took our enemies minions one by one by one..

But during our Dungeon expansion, we inadvertently opened up into a preconstructed tunnel, and it did not take Kalith long to try to push into our dungeon, for though we had been careful, and though we had scavenged as much as we could, there was still two keepers to battle, to our one. And so we pushed back, hard, destroying Kaliths minions, what little she could not snatch from death.









Casualties on both sides where exceptionally high, but much higher on Kaliths side, with the amount of bodies of the slain laying about, we where able to coax some Vampires into aiding us, and with Keeper Kalith reeling from our assault, we sent our imps forth to claim the land so as to attempt their destruction.



However, arriving late, Keeper Keis minions began their assault upon us, hoping to buy Kalith enough time to come back her up, but with our earlier victory, Keeper Kalith had been incredibly weakened, and as a result, was not able to assist, and with our earlier victory, our troops morale, and spirit was at a much higher level than Keis minions.







Kalith quickly fell, and with no Minions left, Kei panicked, and prepared to remove her essence from her heart, trying to prove the truth in the old saying 'she who runs away, lives to fight another day.







Though we got their in order to destroy Keis heart, she had since removed its essence, and fled before our wrath.





Ah, but with no rivals to weigh us down, we strode North to put a battle hardened old veteran out to pasture..















And so, with the death of their lord, another realm fell under the shadow.

Erelyns Down

The people enjoyed each other's company so much. that they'll be together forever now. We've thrown them all into a big pit and piled tons of rock on top of them. A fitting end, We'll trust you'll agree.





We met Kei upon the battlefield in a later battle, one that forever altered the state of the realms, and truely it was a battle to behold, but one that we shall cover, only in our last lesson.