Leon's point of view

I am woken up from sleeping from a voice. It says.

“No is the time now is when we attack. All of my beautiful ghouls, go forth and kill!”

What kind of idiot wants me to-. Fuck I'm hungry. Hungrier then I have ever been. I'm so hungry it woke me up from my dead sleep. I try to lean forwards as I open my eyes but I am being held down by something. I open my eyes and look down. I'm currently stuck to a table in what appears to be the medical bay. I look around and only see a single person… Only a female gnoll is left inside the room. I call out to her.

“Hey. Can you let me free? I'm starving right now.”

She looks a little frightened by my sudden speech, looking over at me she says under her breath.

“She said they were… But I didn't think they would be that black.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your eyes. They are pitch black… I'm just glad you aren't going crazy and thrashing around. That would have been a problem.”

“Why would I be thrashing about?”

“Well… You're a ghoul now… The only ones we've seen are feral ones being controlled by the lich.”

“Ah that would explain who was talking to me… Any chance I can get let free so I can go grab some food? I'm seriously starving right now.”

“Well… They told me not to let you go… Unless you seemed normal… I guess it should be fine… Just don't try anything.”

“Alright, if you want you can come watch me destroy like 10 fish if you want. Like I said, I'm starving. Hungry enough to eat a horse or so they say.”

“I guess this is what my job has devolved down to...”

We exit and head to the cafeteria… The smell of the cooked food makes me sick to my stomach though… But I am still hungry. The hunger is driving me crazy... What do I eat though... Hungry! Eat! Food! Where? Find food!

Tough's point of view

I am leading the lizard men with my brother Strong. We both stand side by side pushing the pirates back. Slamming into them with my giant shield, forcing men to fall over each other as they are some lying on the ground from the numbing arrows that have struck them. As I think we have this battle won… Out from the side pops more enemies… These ones are different though. They are the ghouls we were told about! I start to panic, if what they said was true about the few that attacked the elementalists... We're in trouble.

Zergnar's point of view

I make another pass over the building, dropping as many shit rocks as I can down. The few nights before we had brought through a mountain of stones, so it is just taking rocks from one location and dropping them onto enemies. I've been doing this for hours now and it is still funny to see men try to avoid being struck by the rocks. Not sure which they are more afraid of, the rock or the shit I laugh to myself. I see some of the ghouls and instinctively go for them.

Their numbers added to the battle might exceed 1000… Combined with the other pirates, we now see the bulk of their force. Around 500-600 pirates are dead or paralyzed. Meaning there are still plenty of targets for my aerial troops to pick off. We unload all of our rocks onto the exiting ghouls… They don't flinch at all as they are hit. They rush into danger without any concern and almost deftly avoid the rocks. We only managed to hit around 100 of them and even still, maybe killed 5-10 of them… This is going to be far more difficult then the pirates we've been assaulting.

Swift's point of view

The ghouls are now right behind the pirates. They start crawling, jumping and slamming their way through them to get to us. No concern about their allies safety. Dozen's of arrows are continually fired by our support at them but almost nothing is hitting them. Even firing directly into the bulk, they still manage to avoid most of it. The ghouls are just about ready to start tearing into us as Green lands right in front of the lizard men troops.

Slamming down with enough force to shake the ground in front of her and destabilize them. At this point, the arrows being fired start connecting. We seize this opportunity to kill a few of the closer ones but their numbers have doubled the amount of threat we have on this side. I hear Leaf scream out over the communicators Kite had made for us.

“WE NEED TO FALL BACK! EVERYONE FALL BACK AND REGROUP! We'll put some walls up and block a single area until we can get a handle on these ghouls. If we fight them separated like this we will lose and I doubt the pirates even understand what is going on. They might not even help the ghouls!”

Green starts putting walls between us in the enemy. We start to fall back… Tough and Strong stay where they are. Killing the few ghouls that jump over the walls made as they slowly trickle through. Steadfast, they are going to attempt to buy us some time to retreat. I yell back at them.

“DON'T BE FOOLS! This will be your deaths if you stay and fight!”

Together they respond.

"Yea but if we retreat then our backs will be open to attack."

10 of the lizard men who were starting to retreat turn back around to help defend… GAH! What fools! What idiots! What morons! I yell back at the troops.

“EVERYONE ELSE RETREAT!”

I rush forwards to stay right behind the front line they've now made. I'll keep them alive until it is too much to deal with.

Epieoth's point of view

The ghouls just don't care. Throwing themselves onto our spears just to make them harder to use. Pushing all the way to our hands if they can as they attempt to scratch and claw at us. We are slowly getting pushed back as more and more of us lose our weapons. Shit! We had the call to fallback and that seems like the best option but at this point many of us will die running away. I call out.

“Everyone who doesn't have a spear retreat! We need too fall back but if we all do, we'll be wiped out as we run! Anyone who stays will die but you will save your comrades! Who is going to st-.”

Before I can finish this off a control nature wall comes up to block the ghouls off. It only takes seconds for some to vault over but they are far more easily dispatched then before. It is Brick, he has come to aid us… This is the second time a elementalist has come to the aid of us demon folk. I call out now… I need to think of my people not just my own honor.

“Retreat while he is buying us time.”

I run with my own men as I look back. Brick continues to makes walls they need to scale to get to us… A few jump over in between making them but he rips them apart bare handed… I can see both his hands have started to rot away from the process of being turned into a ghoul… I'm sorry Brick. I'M SO SORRY! I continue to run with blurry vision as I'm about to cry at his sacrifice.

Gobber's point of view

We've killed or paralyzed hundreds of the pirates we've gone against. Our forces just overwhelm them in power. We were a similar size at the beginning and now they have been reduced to less than half of their numbers. Men have started to retreat back into the building and more try to get up to the second floor. This mission isn't to kill them all, it is the beat them in the war. Cowards are more than welcome to flee from the fight.

I turn around and start seeing the men blocking the sides start retreating. What has happened? Why are they retreating? I hear leaf screaming in my head. Screaming so loud she is almost blowing out her vocal cords.

“RETREAT GOBBER! RETREAT RETREAT RETREAT!”

Retreat… Why? Why would we retreat? I don't understand… Leaf wouldn't… Mislead me though… I must have not heard her until now and she might know more then me. I call for my troops retreat as I see why we are retreating. Hundreds of ghouls start popping out of both sides. Where did all these ghouls come from… I start doing the math… Gold just killed like 25% of her troops for this attack…

We barely make it behind the walls that the elementalists have been creating to get us closer to the enemies. Green comes rushing back towards us with the lizard men following behind her. I see Epieoth and his men running from the opposite direction towards us. They start running passed us and I hear Green yell.

“Some of the idiots decided to stay! I've also been bitten so someone chop my arm off.”

...She said it so matter of fact… Like oh by the way, cut my arm off so I can keep fighting... I start cutting the skin around the infected area. The bite happened to her shoulder blade so after cutting out a good portion I let Leaf cast regenerate on it… She still has her arm… At least for now, while I'm treating her I look over in the direction she came from. I can see Swift running slowly away from a now chasing pack of ghouls. Running behind him is another one of his brothers… I can't tell which one it is.

Brick's point of view

I can't anymore… I have bites all over my body and I can barely move… I'm not going to escape… I look over my battlefield again… 50 ghouls lay dead on the ground… If only… I had a better weapon… If only… I tried harder to learn instead of being so traditionalist… If only… I could have bought more time. I cough up blood. I continue to slowly lose control of my body… This process is very painful, everything around the bite marks burns like it is on fire. I can feel whatever has turned them into the monsters turning me as well… I don't want my comrades to have to fight me. I rush forwards slamming two ghouls through a freshly made wall. I… I'm going to die here…

My death will not be in vain. I know this… I just wish I could have made more of a difference… My strength continues to fade… One of the ghouls tries to come through the hole I just made slamming two ghouls against the wall. I pull him down onto the jagged edge of the rock. Using my body weight to impale him… I lost the feeling in both my hands… I can't move either of my hands now.

I had planned this to be a suicide mission in the end… I knew it was going to happen, our armies were just too different in sizes. Someone has to die and if I could minimize the number of people that do by taking a more dangerous role. I had already decided I was going to… I just wish… I would have gone out in a better way then becoming a ghoul that is going to fight against his allies… NO! I can't do that! Another one tries to come through the same hole and I headbutt him back through it.

Kite gave me these gauntlets… But I haven't used them yet… They are still loaded with rocks I could have fired while staying at range… I should have done that but decided not to. I thank Kite for giving me these gauntlets none the less. I can't move my arms so I slam against the building trying to force one of my hands under my chin. It is in place… The last thing I can think is… Did my sacrifice even matter? If I retreated with them, would it have cost anyone’s life? Did I save any elementalists by doing this? I add a tiny amount of mana to the gauntlets and feel them start to work. Rocks fly into my head… If I wasn't so weakened I might have been able to survive it. I fall over instantly after the attack happens. I am dead.