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The Last Stand of the Last Wall

Upon hearing that Aldain had captured the legendary Tip of Spring, the mighty Captain Diomecles gathered the Heroes of The Last Wall in Alchemical Dragons for the battle to end all battles against the powerful sorcerer. With an entire Alchemical Dragon legion at his command, they spotting the harpy menace who was beginning to cast a portal, and began their descent.

In order to put a halt on his escape, Narsus, who knew the evil harpy very well after past adventures, teleported to the ground from the ship that the rest of the party lied in wait from within. When Narsus arrived and attempted to assault Aldain however, he found that the appearance of the harpy was merely an illusion, and, as The Last Wall began to fall to the sudden attack of newly appeared Gugs, it became very clear that this was all merely a distraction used to cripple The Last Wall-- civilization's last beacon of hope in this gruesome war effort-- which had now been left all but defenseless after the stronghold's greatest heroes had unintentionally abandoned it.

Aldain sprang a trap on the Alchemical Dragons that came for him, having automated machines launch projectiles with Runes of Shattering branded into them at the legion of ships, causing many to crash land, killing many brave soldiers in the process.

With help from some of the inhabitants on board, Diomecles managed to captain the Heroes of The Last Wall to a safe landing before counting who amongst mangled corpses and ships still breathed. Few survived, but those that did joined the fearless captain's war effort. With The Last Wall being attacked far in the distance and the direct opposite direction presumed to be deeply consisting of deadly Orc territory, the Captain found himself in the midst of a troubling decision-- Save The Last Wall, or leave it to its own devices under threat of orcs and gugs in favor of hunting down the true enemy in Aldain.

After some time to deliberate, the Captain made the decision to make the return to The Last Wall to protect the innocent lives from within and to preserve the symbol of hope that The Last Wall stood for, opting to pursue the evil entities running the war at a later time.

Upon realizing the great distance needed to be covered in order to return to The Last Wall, Narsus suggested a quicker, alternate form of travel-- walking through the shadow plane.

Narsus was only able to walk with a certain amount of people in the plane at a time, so Narsus took along Solak, Diomecles, Pollumby and Epsilon, while Desmond remained behind with Gumby and the rest of the surviving heroes to be picked up in a second traveling party by Narsus.

Even with the party limit that Narsus set in the shadow plane, he still found it hard to keep them all together, unintentionally splitting Solak and Captain Diomecles off from the rest of the party. Pollumby and Epsilon quickly united, initially trying to take on Aldain who they discovered was attacking the heroes' stronghold. Through their efforts, they ended up eventually running into Narsus who accompanied them in their battles to come.

The Captain appeared on one of the walls of defense on the exterior of The Last Wall, with Solak not far away. Diomecles not only saved the old wizard, but led the defending troops upon the wall to initial success over the seemingly never ending hordes of orcs attempting to break their way in. It was the involvement of gugs that turned the tide in the enemies favor. Despite the sheer might of the Captain taking out multiple gugs on his own, the troops were pushed back, resulting in several friendly deaths.

In the meantime, unbeknownst the heroes storming the assault on The Last Wall, the surviving heroes from the attack on the Alchemical Dragons that were awaiting Narsus' return in order to join the attack were knocked unconscious by Gumby who revealed himself to be working with the enemy. When Desmond, who was among those captured awoke, he found himself locked into a prison and hooked to a contraption that he later found existed to generate evil, controllable clone versions of those that were imprisoned. It was then that he also discovered, among the countless heroes in captivity, that Soran, The Prime, Jord and Brandon Huckleberry were in fact alive after being previously thought dead from earlier battles that Diomecles had led them into. Desmond had seen Gumby assisting an alchemist and had many questions about his allegiances, but didn't receive many answers. All he learned was that Gumby had been branded and stripped of his free will, and that his handler Lyle would take any others who wished to be branded as well.

Back at The Last Wall, Diomecles and Solak continued the fight against the legions of orc degenerates, but the orcs' collective push continued to be the more effective effort. In a true show of might, the Captain mounted the mightiest of gugs the battle had to offer, whittling it to death with thrusts of his mighty spear. It was a tandem effort from Solak assisting with a mighty push of his force magic that eventually helped bring the beast down, but this move also proved to trap Diomecles under the now slain gug, and left at the mercy of the orc horde he'd been plunged into.

Meanwhile, Pollumby, Epsilon and Narsus reached a decent vantage point to try and attack Aldain, but before they could, Finn Morgan's familiar ship flew to where they stood, dropping off slave clone versions of Sigmund, The Prime and Okrim Lefort to combat the three Heroes. The battle was not easy, with each of the heroes getting uncomfortably close to death's door, however they managed to find themselves barely on top of the conflict, killing the clones in the process. Battered and beaten, they were just beginning to stagger over and regroup as Morgan's ship returned, dropping off more slave clones in the likenesses of Gigan, Soran, Declan Fitnorris and Desmond. It was when they were dropped off that it was also noticed that the driver of Finn Morgan's ship was a slave clone of the Shackles Pirate Captain as well. The second wave proved to be too much, and, just as killing blows were ready to be struck, Morgan's ship swooped in and recaptured both the clones, as well as the heroes that nearly fell to them.

It quickly became clear that the evil powers that be intended on adding the great Heroes of The Last Wall to their cloned ranks.

One by one, the Heroes were taken down and captured by the forces that were seizing The Last Wall, and one by one they were placed in the same imprisonments that Desmond had been in for the majority of the domination of The Last Wall. When all of the Heroes had reunited in the chains of imprisonment, it was the first time there was truly a feeling of utter defeat for the Heroes. The status of The Last Wall was unknown, but likely destroyed, and the tides of the war effort as a whole seemed to have turned for the absolute worst. The Heroes were left to sit in captivity while their captors ravaged the world to their liking. The world's best hope was now in bonds...

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Many days had passed since they were all placed in captivity, giving them plenty of time to think, wonder and make seemingly futile attempts at inspiring faith into others. Each of them were cloned, they could feel it, but none could recollect the exact things their clones had done while they remained captive. At this lowest of low points, far more than just the battle seemed lost. After a while, their captors stopped checking on them as if they were merely trophies to be forgotten about. Shudders of defeat and agony filled the confines of their prison as hope continued to deflate from the individuals who once saw it fit to call themselves heroes.

But it was in an instant that hope was reignited.

Screams of battle were heard early one morning from outside the stone doors of the Heroes' hall of imprisonment, and as cries of death began to be heard, flames started to blast their way through the doors as well. As the doors collapsed under the force from the flames, the man that was known by his legions of followers as Father Flame emerged with his trusted right hand man by his side. It was very apparent that they'd seized the stronghold that the prison laid within the heart of, and put to death all those that stood in their way. The Flames of the Brotherhood were never easily extinguished. It was Father Flame himself that approached Diomecles, expressing his need for him and his mighty Heroes in the battle to come. Diomecles looked back at him, still in disbelief, as the hooded followers of the Brotherhood began to free all the captives from their bonds.