Of Times Forgotten...

The ten remaining Scions made their way back to the mainland, moving in the dark of night, far from preying eyes. They made their way to the ruins of Sylva, and performed dark rituals of divining there. Three days and nights they spent, among the remains of the fallen. Three days and nights they focused their powers, raising an enormous army to overtake the Paladins. A divining ritual indicated that the Silver Ginseng, the key component of the Ritual, was being held in Lockhorn Keep, east of the great city of Yew. And so, when they had assembled their army, they began their advance. And this time, they had summoned their greatest ally.

At the same time, a group of Paladins left Lockhorn Keep, taking the Silver Ginseng to a hidden stronghold nestled within the Serpent’s Spine. It was needed there, so that research for a cure to the Affliction might continue. Had the fates smiled on them, they might have waited a day or two, for then they would have been present for the arrival of their enemy. They would have been able to perform the ritual again and prevent the slaughter that was to come...

Instead, Lockhorn Keep became the center of a massacre.

For six days they held against the armies of undead. For six days they watched as their own fallen rose up to take arms against them. Those six days at the keep were a living hell. But they held out as long as they could, for they hoped that aide would soon arrive. A runner had been sent to find the caravan that transported the Silver Ginseng. If they received the message in time, then they would return and finish the Scions once and for all by conducting their ritual. And so the soldiers at the Keep fought on, despite overwhelming numbers against them.

The seventh day, their aid arrived. They made their way through the deep forest, advancing on the undead army. And there, again, they silently performed their ritual. But the Scions had not come unprepared this time. Before the first reagent was consumed in their pyre, it stirred... and the thing they summoned sensed the power of the ritual, and moved in with a determined fierceness. And while the battle raged on, and the healers and priests performed their magic, a huge winged creature cut across the night sky.

Baal’morda himself had come to intervene.

His presence served one purpose and one purpose only... to prevent the ritual from being cast. If it were allowed to begin, they his precious Scions would be destroyed, and the sustenance they gathered for him would be gone. He did not know the true power of the ritual — but he understood, too late, that once it had begun he was powerless to stop it. And so the priests and healers performed the ritual that ended the battle and damned the Scions who fought there; and all the while they stared in the face of the daemon who stood mere feet from them, knowing that he would strike them down the instant the ritual was completed.

Later, the remains of the elves and humans who had completed the ritual were found. They had been torn limb from limb by the savage creature. And the Silver Ginseng was nowhere to be found. Over the next few days, the bodies of all ten the Scions were also found — each one of their bodies destroyed by the power unleashed by the Silver Ginseng. The battle against the Scions was over.