At the Hollow Hills Keep...

Their archer comrades covering them and watching closely from the tree line, they started along the path leading to the keep walls. Their leaders had been right; the keep was inhabited again. It did not take two days, new goblins and their undead masters had come. No word from the scouts. These must have been more than simple mindless zombies to surprise and kill their scouts without being noticed by the frequent patrols...

Controlling his fear and steeling his nervers, Yurmael reached the outside walls of the keep and risked a look inside. The courtyard was covered with a light fog. Nothing moved.

He heard a gasp behind him and turned around to see his companion tight in the grasp of a vaporous monster. He swung at it, cutting accross its arm to free his friend, and hit only air. Then hands grabbed at his ankles, almost tripping him. With horror, he saw skeletal hands piercing through the ground around him. That is where the undead at come from: From bodies buried around the keep. He tried to pry himself free, slashes at the hands as the skeletons were freeing themselves from the ground. Yurmael looked at his friend and saw he was already dead: a pale figure stripped of life energy and shocked to death, his body drifting to the floor through the wraith's ethereal body.

He slashed at it again, to no good. Them bony hands grab him from all sides and he loses his nerves. He starts screaming in utter terror, crying for Corelon's help.

With a painful tug, skeletons hands wrenched away his armor and skin and he thought it was the end, and prayed for it to be quick. Yet what he heard next was the distinct crack of multiple bones. Then rattling against heavy metal plates as the skeletons were attacking whoever had come behind him. He opened his eyes and turned around and what he saw, he could not believe.

An enormous plate clad man was lifting two skeletons and launching them with brutal force against the stone walls where they crashed and shattered. His plate was heavy and crowned by a huge helm showing a skull and nothing but two pin holes for the eyes. The shoulders were huge blades. But what stroke Yurmael mute was the four arms, now drawing two huge bastard swords and two shields, as the wraith went for him.

The blades took bluish and greenish hues as the armored man engaged the undead, yet his attacks seemed to have little effect on his ethereal opponent. Likewise, the heavy armor offered little protection against the insubstancial body of the wraith.

And as if the four arms was not enough surprise, the man dropped swords and shields, stepped back and from his hips, drew four strange weapons, akin to crossbows with no bow or strings. Yurmael reckoned these were guns, rare alchemical weapons. Rumors had it they made a mess, but no stories prepared him for what came next.

The hulking man pointed his four arms toward the wraith and press all four triggers, unleashing a thunderous blast from each, and from each a devastating arc of lightning went and strucked the undead. The noise and termendous energy sent the elf crashing backward. For him, the end of the world couldn't be any worse.

Yet, all that was left was a strange smell in the air. No trace of the undead.

The huge man snorted, slid a panel of his helm open to spit gruesome phlegm where the wraith had been, then turned and walked toward the keep.

Behind him, a man stood, came forward and offered him his hand. He too was in a heavy and evil looking armor, but his helm was at his side. On his chest was the symbol of the Flaming fist of Baldur's Gate.

" It seems you have an undead problem, Sir elf. ".

From the woods, Yurmael heard the footsteps of elves arriving. Much too late if it wasn't for these two strangers help.

" My name is Galarnok Partack. Excuse the brutal efficiency of my friend. Lukkieddi Voricht does not know how to hold back. ", he went on.

" It so happens that I am looking for a place to setup a camp against these undead. It also appears that you fair folks are spread too thin accross the woods to hold this keep as well. "

Yurmael was still too stunned to find words, he simply nodded, a little too fast, trying to keep his heart from exploding.

" It seems you and I can reach an... agreement, right friend? ", and he smiled.