The Last Stand of Morgan Valth
Yanus is supposed to be a celebration of change coming in a new year, however to the people of Vestoria this Yanus brought a change that none would celebrate. It is still unknown what provoked the change to begin but it began with the poorest of the people almost outcast in their own city. Reports had trickled in over the past months of a beast that was the source of disappearnces among the poor, homeless, and others lacking influence on the outskirts of the city. The guard was eventually mobilized to investigate but either through a lack of effort or simply having taken too long they found no viable leads to follow. Instead they issued a curfew claiming it was for their own good that none be out and that whatever it was would lose interest and leave.
Those that vanished would return, in a sense anyway. On the first of Yanus dozens of mutated creatures that had once been the missing people burst forth into the impoverished area while it was under curfew. They broke down doors, crawled through windows, roofs anything they could get their twisted forms through. It was past midnight before the first alarm bells began to ring from the few survivors of the initial attack. As the guards on the city walls began to see what was going on in the slums they ordered the doors to be locked and braced. In their mind their duty was to the people in the city, not to help those outside it. When people began to flee from the carnage in the slums towards the city they found the large gates hopelessly stuck and the guards turning a deaf ear to their pleas. The source of the mutants an old cathedral in disrepair began to glow as a dark blue swirling mist came spilling out of the building snaking its way through the slums. Where there was screams, alarm bells and distant sounds of conflict came only silence as the mist spilled over the slums like a smothering blanket. When it crashed against the walls of the city all those pleading for entry were consumed by the mist. In silent agony their bodies began to rapidly grow, skin splitting and re-knitting as bones and muscle grew rapidly and randomly generating extra limbs and eyes, spines and spikes. There was no real way for the guards who reported on this event to truly describe what had happened before their eyes.
The mutants slowly shambled or crawled their way back towards the slums, but the city quickly was surrounded by the mutagenic mist that the guards swore would stretch out tendrils as if to try and climb the surface. Facing a panic the nobles of the city tried many ways to flee and leave others to their fates. Each attempt to teleport out failed, when someone tried to fly out with magic well over a 100 feet in the air above the mist it was as if something had reached up seized the mage and drug them down into the mist. Shortly after that attempt the hordes of mutated populace began clawing at the gates, the guards attempted to repel them with crossbow fire but this quickly was abandoned when they saw each bolt that drove into a mutant did little to hurt it, but the bolt itself began to mutate fusing with the body and turning into a new appendage, made of wood.
The matter was then entrusted to a long retired mercenary captain named Morgan Valth. He ordered a deadly maze of spikes be set in the open area behind the main door to funnel what he assumed were witless zombies of some manner to reduce the numbers advantage. Further he ordered the torch oil for the city lights to be made ready to use as weapons from small catapults should the funnel become overwhelmed. Though he faced a great deal of dissent at the order he nonetheless gave the order to open a single side of the main gate. He lined the barricades with spearmen with archers having switched to slings ready to fire at the oncoming mutants.
As the gate was opened he ordered the first shot of the catapult which lobbed a barrel of torch oil through the open gate, a guard on the wall then shot a flaming arrow into the puddle immolating dozens of the mutants and dispersing the fog while the fire burned. This was a welcome relief to Morgan Valth, though it was short lived as flaming, shambling mutants began to step through the gate being stabbed a dozen times before even slowing. It was as if they were blind to obstacles as the first one bumped into the spikes and then was pushed deeper onto them by the press of the horde behind it straining the wood spikes. Without the mist around them though their flesh bled, and the spikes bit deep without adverse effects. He gave the order for another barrel of oil to be readied, this time shot over the wall to create a wider buffer from the mist. At the point he could see exhaustion on the faces of his soldiers ordered the portcullis dropped, the horde once more barred, for now. Those that remained inside were finished off. He ordered his men to gather any supplies they could and fall back to the next set of walls as once the fire burned out the mist would come through.
This happened again, and again each night trying to thin out the numbers of the hordes but always having to fall back. On the fourth night they set fire to the lower part of the city to keep the mist from entering further and hopefully do more damage to the mutants. Eventually they had run out of ground, the populace of the city was now sheltered in the noble district. Morgan Valth had every man woman and child now part of the defense effort, those who would wield weapons did, the others ran ammo and orders. They were pushed back to the last defense, but they had reaped a massive tally on the hordes. The fight was going well, the hordes made no ground and were dwindling down to a few dozen.
That is when the mist began to pour up from the sewer system of the city bypassing the burning lower ring and flooding the city in the mist. The defenders quickly found themselves being transformed and panic began to fill the remaining ranks. It was on the steps of the castle that Morgan Valth would make his final stand fighting well past the point of exhaustion to keep those inside safe. Little did he know that the mist had already begun pouring out of the windows of the castle as well. His struggle truly ended when he saw the bodies of the mutants slain embraced by the mist shudder and stir and stand once more. He knew victory was truly lost now.
It is said by those brave or foolish enough to explore The Arcanmoors that there still resides an armored skeleton at the foot of the castle. When any of the mutants are observed coming too close the body rises from its rest and slays the creature before returning to its rest.
Conflict Type
Battle
Battlefield Type
Urban
Start Date
Yanus 1, Year 19 of the Third age
Ending Date
Aceris, 2, Year 20 of the Third age
Conflict Result
The fall of the city Vestoria and creation of the Arcanmoors
Location
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