The dwarven outpost of Mridsgate is normally close to impregnable, so long as it's manned by enough dwarves and not facing any truly powerful magic. It's been crafted by the finest dwarven engineers, designed to withstand spells and armies, engineered to let the dwarves kill their foes without taking any casualties of their own.

The ghouls have breached it.

As the Defenders look out, they can feel palpable evil seeping into their veins. Vision is obscured by clouds of greasy smoke that drift across the courtyard, but even with limited sight it's clear that the dwarves won't stand for long. A single breach in the wall has allowed more than a hundred orcish and goblinoid ghouls access into the inner courtyard, scuttling up and over the wreckage of the wall. The first undead through fell like hewn trees before the dwarven soldiers, but the ghouls just keep coming and coming, often using the paralyzed bodies of living dwarves as shields -- and field rations -- as they push their way forward. The Defenders of Daybreak quickly realize that at the moment the odds are about even, and every second makes the odds worse and worse for the dwarves.

Nolin casts mass haste, and Agar opens the door to the gatehouse and steps out of the way. The other heroes run past him along the narrow wall platform or down into the surging, screaming melee below. Tao pauses at the door, looks down in revolted anger, and turns undead. She feels the power of Galanna surge through her with the same force that drives a tree root through rock, and three -- only three! -- undead explode into dust beneath her. Worried, she casts flame strike into the ghoulish line, and is somewhat more rewarded to see charred, twitching carcasses after her pillar of fire disappears. Even there, however, the holy energy seems to be somewhat subdued.

Agar has arcane sight up, and sees what caused it. "It's that wall!" he yells over the cacophony of gurgling undead and ripping flesh. "It has unhallow cast on it, along with some spell that ruins morale! It's suppressing holy energy!" Velendo's head snaps up.

"What?" he asks in shocked disbelief. "WHAT! Those . . . those bastards had the nerve to unhallow a WALL?" His face narrows to an angry grimace. "I don't think so." Pushing his way through the door, he steps out on the wall, and he immediately feels the cloying foulness trying to worm its way into his soul... feelings of hopelessness, of surrender, of defeat. Defiant, Velendo stands on the unhallowed wall, and heedless of the ghouls around him he raises his voice in a prayer to The Wallbuilder. Then Velendo's hands slap down onto the mortared stone, and his dispel evil reverberates throughout the bastion.

There is a bright flash, a sound something like a gong, and the insidious sense of evil simply disappears.

"Hah!" shouts Velendo triumphantly, his old voice cracking. "Defile a WALL, will you?" He turns and casts positive wall directly into the breech to his left. The space instantly fills with sparkling yellow energy. A ghoul finds out the hard way what it does when it scuttles through, hunger in its rotting orcish eyes, and falls into a pile of steaming bones on the far side. "Nothing's going through there," mutters Velendo in a pleased tone.

As soon as the unhallow is gone, the rest of the Defenders work to clear the courtyard. Malachite runs carefully along the ledge, finally unleashing a positive energy burst for maximal effect. Luminor quickly solidifying beside her from his gaseous form, Mara leaps down and begins to lay about her with her holy mace. The ghouls which surround her are still smoking from Malachite's attack, and they leap at the beautiful paladin with a ferocity born of desperation. Blond hair flying, Mara slams her shield against an encroaching ghoul and swings Lightbinder into its stomach with a crackling burst of light. The undead hobgoblin dissolves like tissue paper under her blow, and she spins to continue sweeping her mace around her. Every single ghoul she hits is burst into two, and within a few seconds there are no enemies within 5 ft. of her. "Luminor!" she calls, and her horse coalesces into flesh in time for her to mount.

Near her, Galthia spins his quarterstaff of disruption with perfect precision, dropping two ghouls and blasting two more into golden dust. Galthia's eyes dance, but he never smiles.

Up in the guard chamber, Nolin opens up with two fireballs in a perfect spread pattern, catching the ghouls without hurting any dwarves, and the Defenders of Daybreak maneuver (or gallop) through the courtyard cutting down the injured ghouls. The dwarves, now regrouped, join in the fight, and very quickly there are few ghouls let in the courtyard to fight. Twitching limbs and crawling maggots abound, but no ghoul who crossed the breached wall still stands.

"Watch out for a leader!" calls Nolin. "There will be someone giving them orders!"

From his vantage point atop the wall, Velendo and Nolin suddenly catch a glimpse of something disturbing through the drifting smoke. A squat ghoul shambles forward into view . . . a ghoul with glowing red eyes, like Kellharin's when he held his parley the day before. "You showed up a little before I expected," he admits. "If you're sure we can't be friends . . . .?" Then the ghoul's mouth opens impossibly wide, and hideous syllables issue forth from it, infernal words that no man should know. The ghoul finishes the spell as it holds something over its head, smiles sublimely, and then his head explodes. The body topples backwards, whatever he was holding skittering a few feet away.

"His head exploded!" says Nolin in surprise. Then Agar points, and Nolin sees the hideous rip in reality that has opened up above where Kellharin was standing. It squirms, twists, and ruptures open into a circular inferno of fire and brimstone.

Out from the gate slithers a 12 foot tall serpent creature with a woman's body and a woman's face. Coiled, hellish armor adorns her otherwise naked chest, and six scimitar sheaths line her scaly flanks. Her eyes catch Velendo's, and they look to him like burning coals.

"Kill everyone in the fortress?" The demon's voice sounds like dragon scales dragged across stone. She sounds amused. "I accept."

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