Having done what was possible to learn about Bishop Fiosa, you have decided to stop waiting. She clearly isn’t coming to attack the camp, and you’re making no progress toward your goals just sitting here.

The city of Tsar lies ahead, and within it, perhaps Fiosa and certainly the anvil that Justicar Gerrant needs to finally leave this world. You buy your provisions, and travel north, slowly slogging through the steam and mud of the Boiling Lands, your trip only made bearable by the stone shelters that Pendrais has created one day’s march from each other.

While there are are still some dangers in the Boiling Lands, none of them are your equal, and you spend almost two weeks moving northward, until the ground rises and you grow near to the Chaos Rift. You’ve been scried upon a few times as you travel, but still no sign of the Bishop. Perhaps the slow curse of lichdom has finally taught her patience, you can’t say for certain.

The gargoyles are few as you skirt the Chaos Rift, and they have learned to give you a wide berth indeed. The road seems same aside from the occasional wandering undead. While little more than slavering madmen, the poisonbearer ghouls charge anything they detect, the pain of their eternal hunger forcing them onward. Tactically, they’re predictable, and with two Arodenites, you have little to fear from their contagious filth.

As you get further north, you carefully adjust your course to avoid both the halfling dig site and the roaming menace of the Battlehulk. As Grumell guides you up hill after hill, you eventually top a rise that shows something of interest in the distance.

There, atop the next ridge, is the remains of a small fort. And though it’s defenders are long dead, they guard the battlements still. Some await silently atop the walls, while other giant undead, following the commands given them many decades ago, attempt to load stones into catapaults that have long since decayed. Once released, the stones crash through the framework, and roll to the bottom of the slope, only to be retrieved once more.

For these defenders, the war still rages….