Part 5

Master,
Of the Trainees you have sent my way, of them all, there's only two or three who may actually survive the class. Being astute above their classmates. I have already begun the thinning of their ranks, and our resident Vampires have been feeding well.

I humbly request the attendance of Samurai from your prisons in several days

Your humble Servant.

Lushmeadow on down

The bloody axes of war and famine have so far bypassed this quiet backwater, leaving the inhabitants totally unaware of the purpose of real agony and loss. Unbearably most die of old age.



A thing about facing other keepers is that often, they are already well dug in, and holding the favour of the dark gods in their fortress. But the Dark gods are resourceful, and want only the strongest to survive, and as such, it is often possible to take this favour. Forcibly.



In this particular fortress, keeper Belial had won a victory here many months ago, and since then, had decided to rest on his laurels, which had caused the strongest of his creatures to leave the Area. Let it be known that above all else, your minions have a love for battle, and if given no chance to fight, they will eventually leave for other, greener, smokier, pastures.





We set our eyes expanding northwards to a lake of fire. Evidently, the dark gods have already begun their terraforming of this land, as we can see, all that remains of the old hero fortress is an old prison, but this prison held two spiders, and a..



Bile Demon.

Bile demons are big. They're big, bloated, and have a love for stinking out your dungeon. They attack... somewhat unconventionally, which is what you'll see later.



We set our minions to training, and our warlocks to researching. Spotting the potential for a true winner, the dark gods, and our warlock minions gifted us with the power to see beyond the veil of the shadow that blocks our view.







We used this to determine Belials performance, thankfully, he hadn't yet realised that he had a competitor on his hands. He had a lot of gold, but hadn't actually built anything of importance yet, seeming far more interested in mining yet more gold.

We then bridged out to the prison, and commandeered it. Where we in a mood to have a longer fight, or if we had more than one opponent as a keeper, we would have instructed our creatures to capture, but we didn't intend this fight to last long..





But evidently, Belial had caught on to the fact that he was no longer the only Keeper in the land, but he was too slow, and the lead we had on him was great. We set forth to end his short lived reign as Keeper Supreme of this realm.









While battle was joined, look closely at this memory, specifically the green tiling of the training room... it's gas. I spoke truthfully when I said that Bile Demons attacked unconventionally, they attack with their gasses. They usually get their own lairs because other creatures have a tendency to pass out due to the overwhelming stench when more than one Bile Demon has their lair with another.







With no creatures left to defend his dungeon. Belial fell into the dark, abandoned by his Dark gods. And there is the most important lesson of all. The Dark gods favour the strong, and will readily abandon you if you fail to deal with other keepers in the only fashion needed.





Knife

The streets run with the blood of the slain. Screams of pain and the howls of anguish rip the night air like a vengeful siren song. This really is somewhere you can take the kids for a weekend.