The Trials of the Dusk's Song Irregulars

Military: Skirmish

Pinned down and surrounded by a drifting herd of deathless assailants, an unlikely group of heroes held their ground against immeasurable odds and outlasted the onslaught.

In the wastes of the east, an unfortunate truth is that the dead walk, and often in large numbers. The energies of the Void have strange properties that cause this. The Eastern Wastes are open terrain without much in the way of defensive constructions, and due to this, especially in the early years of that regions settlement, many outlying communities and wandering caravans were lost to the dangers that populate the land, and more often than not, become a part of the larger problem.   The small encampment of Dusk's Song, not more than a wagon train and a scattering of a few tents, could see the early warning signs the day before the attack occurred. By this time, the natives of the land had learned to watch for large dust clouds being kicked up by large numbers of hapless feet. The people there, settlers and a few merchants, were not able to pull up stakes and move everyone out in time, so rather than abandon the slower members of their caravan, every able bodied person picked up anything that even remotely resembled a weapon, and began to prepare for the horde. Wagons were overturned, scrap and debris was dug in as a means to slow and halt the shambling terrors that were headed their way, and the young, the weak, and the elderly were gathered centrally and given whatever ranged implements they could find, many of them piling stones for throwing.   As night fell, the first of the restless dead entered their lamp lights, and the conflict began. The fighting was fierce and terrible, and the losses were many as they raged into the night, holding back wave after wave of the undead. Those that were injured made sorties into the herd in attempts to draw them off before they could succumb to their own injuries and risk becoming a threat to their own people. The mass surrounded the defenders entirely, and seemed to be unrelenting. Hours passed with ceaseless combat, sticks and stones flew threw the air and the bodies of the abominations piled up high along the caravan barricades, however, despite the odds and the seemingly unending numbers, the Ventrytes would not give in and fought without a single chance to rest, instead trading out places on the line so that minor injuries could be tended and winded fighters could catch a breath. As the faint light of the wasteland dawn began to creep along the ground, morning brought with it the bittersweet realization that they had won...but it was a a great and terrible price. Of the initial approximate three hundred men, women, and children, only twenty three remained standing. Of those twenty three, six more would perish as a result of injuries sustained. Those that remained vowed then and there to hold the watch and guard the Wastes in memory of those that fell that night. This was the inception of Dusk's Song and the Irregulars that are housed there to this day.