You know that this is most likely a losing battle, but some hope might be gained, if you can somehow draw out the knights and specters and get them by themselves. As powerful as they are, they're very hard to control even by necromancers and get easily agitated by living creatures.

You can't do it alone though. You take your best archers and a couple of your best wizards and mention your plan. You don't ask for volunteers, you just assign. You're in charge and you have to make the hard decisions, even if it might mean you'll die. They don't look enthused, but you aren't either.

You tell everyone else to hold their ground while you and your small platoon ride towards the horde.

"Ready those blessed silvers men, and you robe wearers melt those dead tin cans!"

You get close enough and you unleash as many blessed silver arrows as you can at the Blood Specters. You kill a few. The wizards don't do quite as well with the knights. However, both attacks are enough.

You see the Specters and Knights making whatever unearthly noises they do and begin to advance towards you far ahead of the slower yet steady moving horde. It apparent that the necromancer controlling them is attempting to bring them back under control, because they begin to squirm back and forth which gives you some more time to kill a few more during their confusion. Eventually the necromancer must give up total control because they stop squirming and advance upon you once again.

You ride back as quickly as possible with the Specters and Knights in full pursuit. You didn't expect those Specters to be so fast. A few of them manage to catch up to some of your men with grisly results. You yourself almost get smacked upside the head by a Death Knight mace. When you get back in range the rest of your awaiting army deals with your pursuers. More blessed arrows fly into the Blood Specters before they can do anymore harm, and eventually the Death Knights are brought down as well.

There is no time for a reprieve though, as the main horde is now almost upon you. You order a regrouping as best you can, and face the enemy, telling if possible for someone to aim for the necromancer in all of this rotting mess.

Bones and limbs from both sides are broken and hacked off. A zombie skull is smashed, splashing maggots, blood and brains all over you and you're not even thinking about it. You just have a tune in your head to take yourself away from the massacre. Somehow in all of the chaos, you single out the necromancer leading this army, he stands a far piece away from the main fighting, but he's arrogant enough to be close enough for you to hit him with an arrow.

And you have to hit him now. You see a Grand Alliance soldier who just took a fatal blow to the chest begin to rise…

Not many arrows left and not much time, you just load up and shoot, hoping you hit the bastard.

Your shot is straight and true. It strikes the necromancer in the stomach, causing him to fall back, which in turn causes the undead horde to momentarily stop their vicious attacks, giving your side a chance to turn the tide a bit.

Then you shoot another arrow when you see the necromancer attempt to get back up, which turns the tide completely in your favor. Zombies and skeletons fall. Ghouls flee at the loss of leadership and any remaining undead are quickly dispatched. You don't take chances though. You walk up to the corpse of the necromancer and shoot your last arrow directly into his head and stab him a few times.

You then start laughing.

"If this was the Great Lich Lord, I'd be a real hero right now!"

You quickly sober up from this macabre outburst when you hear shouting from some of your men and you look up.

It's another horde. Just as big. You look behind you and see that your own numbers are completely insufficient. The Garwold citizens are either mostly dead or demoralized at this point.

Even when you win…you lose.

Having no real options, you sound a retreat to fall back to the Zalan border and suggest that the Garwold citizens do likewise as there is nothing more for them here.

The Garwold Confederacy is now just one more loss for the living. The Zalan Empire won't be far behind.

Three years pass…

Ten years since the Nuro incident and The Grand Alliance is nearly just consisting of the Zalan Empire now, which in turn has had to adapt a siege mentality. There is no "going on the offensive" anymore. You're purely on defense.

Your brother Mallack died two years ago. Transferred to a location with more fighting due to lack of manpower. Like it matters. Didn't even get to say goodbye. You can only hope he didn't become one of those things…but you know he probably did.

You've been urging your family to run where it's safer, but of course they won't budge. The undead have been penetrating deeper into Zalan territory, you know it's only a matter of time before the Great Lich Lord decides to stop toying with you and makes his full scale attack.

Sure enough it happens. Town after town is taken; you're pushed back further and further, and you know there's nothing you can do to stop it.

An order is given to everyone to fallback to the capital and help defend it from an upcoming attack, but at this point you're just wondering if the rest of your family is still alive.

You go to your family

Really, it's the only thing that makes any kind of sense anymore. This war is lost there's not even any doubt about it. Hope is fleeting and if this is truly it, then it's going to be with the ones you did this for in the first place.

Your small groups of soldiers wonder where you're going and you flat out tell them, in fact you tell them more than that.

"I'm going home, and I suggest if any of you have any family you go to them as well. This is it folks, there's no happy ending here. It's been a pleasure serving with all of you."

You then ride home as quickly as possible.

The farm is scattered with undead. They attack and in some cases eat the livestock, while attempting to get into your house. Dead Zalan soldiers can be seen, except they aren't properly dead like they should be. The farmhouse is being attacked and you can see your sister firing her pistol at the zombies from one of the broken windows. You trample a couple of the zombies with your horse and kill couple more with your bow, but eventually you dismount and chop up the remaining ones near the farm house, since you want to save your arrows for anything potentially more dangerous.

"Quick get inside through this window, the door is barricaded." your sister Randi shouts when she sees you.
"No! It's a death trap to stay now! This place is lost! You all have to come with me!" you shout back, keeping an eye on the advancing zombies.
"Can't Mom's hurt pretty bad. Got stabbed by one those corpses. We can't move her. Help's gotta come soon…"
"NO, it won't Randi! The capitol of Zalan is being attacked as we speak! I came home to get your guys! This is the fucking end! We've lost! We just gotta…"

You're interrupted when you have to cut down an advancing zombie. Your sister fires a shot at another one. Suddenly a scream from the house is heard, followed by another. That has to be Calwin, and Makana. Randi rushes from the window and you cut down another zombie before bashing the door down with relative ease.

More screaming is heard along with growling this time. You look around and run down the hallway where Randi is standing motionless. She's dropped her pistol.

You push her aside and see your other sister Makana dead on the floor and then a quick scan to the left and you see your mother eating Calwin.

She's one of those things…

You act where Randi failed and give a killing blow to the thing that was once your mother.

"I'm sorry." You whisper and her blood splashes across your face.

Now you're ready to get the hell out of the house, but Randi is still standing there motionless.

"COME ON! WE GOTTA GET THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!" you shout.
"Yeah...okay…" Randi says and begins to move like she's in slow motion and picks up her flintlock.

You run past Randi in the hallway who's still moving slowly.

"Randi get your ass mov…"

You hear a gunshot behind you. Followed by the slumping of a lifeless body. You don't even turn around, you don't want to see.

When you get outside, surprisingly the undead haven't become unmanageable yet, and you cut down another couple with relative ease. Your horse unfortunately has run off, you're on foot from here.

You don't even know where to go. Where is it going to be safe? Nowhere, but you lack any other ideas, so you just head for unclaimed wilderness.

After about a day of running, hiding and maneuvering, you're in a relatively safe location and that's when you finally allow yourself to grieve for the loss of your family. You weep.

You've lost everything now. Everything you did was basically for them, and now they're all gone. You don't know if you can even continue. What would be the point? The world seems to be doomed anyway.

But then after you think about it, you decide that if death is taking over the world, you're not going to make it easy. Death has already taken everything away from you except your life, and you're going to hold on to that as long as possible. You're going to live for your family and all the others that can't any longer.

You're going to survive, because ultimately that's what you've always done. You've cheated death more than once already and you'll continue to do it. Death itself is going to have to hunt you down if it wants your life.

After reaching this conclusion, you try to think of where you should go next. Going to any type of centers of civilization is out of the question now. You'd only have to move again, them being targets now.

So it's the life of wanderer now. The question is where would be best? The forests aren't exactly safe, but you're more familiar with surviving in them. The mountains might be a little safer, but living in them is going to be a lot harsher.

You stick to the forests

Running from the undead, only to die of starvation and the cold in the mountains isn't your idea of survival. You're sticking to familiar terrain. You travel further away from civilization and ultimately deeper into a large forest. You're not exactly sure of where you're at, but you know you've left the Zalan borders. You're probably in the unclaimed area north of the Retlad province. You never patrolled that far when you were stationed there, so you're unsure of what to expect. You'll certainly have to be alert though.

A few weeks pass and you've got the hang of it. A few close calls with an Eberaw Hunter, but you've managed to make somewhat of a home for yourself. You mainly sleep in the trees. You get water from springs and small streams and as for food, well you always were good at hunting.

You pass the time playing your mandolin and just basically keeping watch. As the days pass by though, you get the impression that someone is watching YOU.

It's not any undead though. You haven't seen any in weeks. You haven't come across any living creatures of higher intelligence either, but then again that doesn't mean they aren't around…

"Hello stranger. Do you like our forest?" you hear a small voice say.

You look around, but see nothing. You guess who ever it is, is invisible, and you nearly go for your weapon.

"Please, no need for that. You are among friends here, musical one." The voice says and then you see your unseen host appears before you. She's very small and probably only comes up to ankle. You've heard of fairies before, but you've never seen one.

"Are you a fairy?" you ask.
"We go by many different names. Technically I am a pixie, but if you prefer, fairy will do. We heard you playing over the weeks and I thought it was about time we told you our appreciation for it. We didn't know you big people had gifts for it. You are human are you not?"
"Yes, and thanks."
"So, what brings you out here? Are you a ranger perhaps? You seem to have skills about you that are useful in this environment."
"No, not a ranger. Just trying to escape death like everyone else I suppose."
"Hmm, you realize as beautiful as this forest is, it's not without its dangers. Death is here as well, but I'm sure you know that."
"Yes, but its at least reasonable. There aren't zombies and wraiths terrorizing the place…well at least not yet…"
"What are you talking about stranger?" the pixie asks quizzically, you look a little surprised yourself.

"The Great Lich Lord of course. He's destroying everything, and I dunno how he's going to be stopped. I don't think he can."

Your words immediately make the pixie's cheerful demeanor change immediately.

"…he's returned?! But he was killed centuries ago! My clan has told the stories for generations!"
"Well, he's back, or someone like him…you really didn't know? I mean this war with him has been going on for years now. Ten to be precise. Don't you leave this forest?"
"You must understand stranger, we have everything we want here. There is no need to leave. We also live in illusions, what you see now, is not necessarily what is. We remain hidden in our illusions so nobody may ever harm us and we can live our lives in relative isolation. It is only on rare occasions that we reveal ourselves."
"But I've heard stories about your kind being elsewhere or even in cities." You say.
"Well we are not the only fairy folk you know! Perhaps the others you heard of were sprites, or brownies or even a different clan of pixies. I can only speak for my clan and as far as I know we are the only fairy folk that live in this particular forest. There are other denizens of course, but thanks to our illusions we stay safely hidden. Even the occasional human or goblinoid that has wandered in here has not disturbed us. Quite frankly, you'd be the first person in centuries that we've revealed ourselves to."
"There aren't any elves in this forest?" you ask, sort of figuring that some might have retreated or made a home here, forests being their natural homes and all. Your question is met with slight annoyance.

"Most certainly not! This place has been elf free for millennia and hopefully stays that way! I'll speak no more of this elven nonsense!"

You don't press the issue, but up until now you figured fairy folk and elves were all friends, guess not. The pixie changes the subject since she wants to know more about this Great Lich Lord business and says her name is Qweet. Qweet tells you that she will return with the rest of her clan, as she will not reveal their home of course. In a somewhat playful yet firm tone she also warns you not to try to follow her, though as good of a tracker you are you doubt if you could anyway since she turns invisible again.

While you wait, you still can't believe she and the rest of her clan don't know anything about what's going on; you almost envy them for living in blissful ignorance for the last ten years. You also feel like you've ruined things for them.

Eventually more pixies return and you tell them what's been going on. They are saddened, but maintain a confident demeanor. They are certain that they will survive this plague due to their illusions. They explain that if need be they can hide the entire forest, which with the new grim information you gave them they are very inclined to do. They still have to discuss it.

In the meantime they say they hope you'll stick around for awhile as they still enjoy your playing and you aren't destroying the forest. You're just glad you've met some friendly people that aren't trying to kill you. It's a nice change and after what you've been through recently, you welcome it.

One year passes…

Your time in the pixie forest has been relatively safe. Other than the occasional aggressive forest beasts, you haven't had to do much combat. It's been a relief. You've enjoyed the company of the pixies as well.

However, your natural curiosity has gotten the better of you on occasion and you have made a few trips outside of the forest.

You travel as far as the Retlad province and the first obscure village you stumble across is completely decimated, with undead roaming around. The scary part about it is this is very recent looking, which means they're starting to head your way.

It'll start with the occasional zombie or skeleton wandering in. Then more will come. How long before an army arrives? Again due to your information, Qweet and the rest of her clan have made the final decision to hide their forest entirely. They tell you that they would like you to stay. You would even be allowed to see their true home. The only stipulation is that you would not be able to leave. The illusion wouldn't just hide the forest, but it would create a barrier preventing entry or exit. You can't imagine how it would look to those on the outside of the forest.

Appealing to be sure, but as much as you like the company of the pixies, you don't think it will be safe to dwell in their forest for too much longer, illusions or not. The Gnomes back in the Garwold Confederacy had some excellent illusionists as well, and it didn't help them.

You stay in the forest

This is probably the most satisfied you've been in a long time. Why bother running anymore? You're not going to be any happier elsewhere as you eek out an existence. This is a place where you can play your music and have a regular appreciative audience. Perhaps the pixie illusion will fail, perhaps it won't, but this is your home now.

"Queet, I'm staying."
"That's wonderful!" she squeaks.

The pixies go through with their plan of hiding the entire forest. They explain that for everyone else it will look like a rock mass and the magic shield will prevent entry in case someone bumps into the "rock". Creatures inside will only see more forest outside the barrier and will probably be baffled to as why they can't go any further, but will probably not make any serious attempt to do so even if they could.

The pixies also allow you to enter their little village. Naturally you're much bigger, but a special arrangement is made so that you can stay nearby and they build you a tree-house of sorts and provide meals and drink for you.

Life with the pixies full time is relatively nice. Of course a few are prone to play jokes on you sometimes, you don't get mad about it and they usually make up for it later. A few years pass and it gets to the point where you almost forget about what's going on outside the forest since almost everyday is a pixie party filled with merriment and music. There's one particular time when there was a brief magical disturbance in the illusion, but the pixies managed to correct it. It does cause you to get concerned, but the pixies still insist that you not worry.

After fifteen some odd years pass, the forest begins to signs of unnatural decay, and forest creatures seem to be dying way before their time.

Some of the pixies have made comments of not feeling themselves, which is very odd since being fairy creatures they don't normally get sick. You haven't been feeling up to your usual standards either. You at first chalked it up to age, but you know that it's more than that. The Great Lich Lord's influence has finally penetrated the illusion. Death is creeping in.

The months pass and the illusion begins to break down despite attempts to keep it up. At last for the first time in years you see the "outside world" again. It's desolate and bleak. The Great Lich Lord has been thorough in his conquest of the world and with this new found green patch, it won't be long before it becomes as dead as the rest of the landscape.

Perhaps because they're magical creatures of nature, the pixies cannot withstand this death aura as well as you can, and they begin dying. Their illusions and happy lush world utterly destroyed.

"Wh…why is this happening?" are Queet's last delirious words before she expires.

One by one they all die. You weep as you can do nothing for them. Nobody can. Once again you've lost another family. You wish you'd left the damn forest long ago just so you hadn't deluded yourself and gotten so attached to the pixies only to watch them die.

However, you decide that this place will be your last stand as well and you're too tired to run even if there was anywhere safe to run to anyway. You fight off undead creatures for a couple months as you attempt to survive in this now dying forest, but ultimately you're overwhelmed and killed.

Sadly, unlike your pixie friends, you are not allowed to rest in peace as you wander the landscape in search of the last remnants of life to destroy in the Great Lich Lord's service.