Mike jolted awake with a violent gasp, his heart slamming against his ribs as cold sweat drenched his body. The nightmare had been unlike any other—he had seen through someone else's eyes, fleeing in terror through a moonlit forest as branches tore at their clothes and roots threatened to trip them. The person had crashed over a fallen wall, gasping for breath, only to turn and find a towering figure in blackened armor standing before them. The hunter's skull glowed with sickly green fire, and a shimmering spectral blade hummed in his hand. A hollow voice echoed: "You have been chosen for judgment." The blade descended, the world exploded in green light, and Mike awoke knowing this was no mere dream but a message—the hunt had begun.
After sharing his disturbing vision with the party, they prepared for their journey to Gravenhollow. Templar Commander Caelen Viermont had tasked them with investigating the twin heretics Veyran and Lilith, who had turned the village into a living battlefield of undead. The party debated their route, considering whether to travel through Black Pine despite its werewolf population or take the longer path around. They acquired supplies, with Lena purchasing health potions, and the church provided them with horses for the journey. Traveler successfully navigated them through the Wittmoor forest and the marshlands of Mournhollow, carefully avoiding dangerous areas despite the thick fog that rolled in at various points.
During their journey, the party observed a disturbing sight—shambling corpses strewn throughout the landscape, wandering aimlessly without direction or purpose. The road to Gravenhollow ended abruptly before the town itself, which was enveloped in a thick, metallic mist carrying the scent of chemical rot. When they finally arrived at the village, they found it completely deserted of living inhabitants. The shallow stream that once brought life to the modest settlement now carried dismembered corpses, some floating in the water. Bodies of soldiers and civilians lay scattered throughout the town in various states of decay, torn apart with missing limbs and gaping wounds.
The party immediately sensed something deeply wrong with the place—the ground itself was desecrated, a corruption that would hinder their abilities and potentially lead to worse consequences if left unchecked. They began searching the bodies for evidence connecting the twins to The Belarch, but found no letters or proof. Mike used psychometry to perceive the last violent events that had occurred in the location, and what he witnessed was both horrifying and enlightening.
In his vision, Mike saw the necromancer Lilith in black robes adorned with red sigils, wielding a skull-topped staff that glowed with crimson magic as she raised the dead. Opposite her stood Veyran, the alchemist, covered in blood and wearing tattered rags, commanding grotesque homunculi made of stitched-together body parts—some with four arms, others with weapons surgically attached to their limbs. The twins engaged in a competitive battle, each claiming their creations were superior, while three terrified travelers were captured in the center of town. The twins casually discussed using the fresh corpses for their experiments, with one saying they loved it when they got fresh bodies because they were easier to sew. The battle ended with all creations destroyed and no clear victor, leaving both twins frustrated and vowing to find more resources.
As Mike's vision faded, the familiar cackle of the twins echoed through the town from multiple, shifting directions. Their voices seemed to come from everywhere at once as they taunted the party, noting that they didn't look like normal travelers. Lilith claimed Traveler as hers to kill, warning her brother not to touch him, while Veyran refused to take orders from his sister. Traveler began charging his weapon, a revolver that spun at high speeds and sparked with blue light, preparing for the inevitable confrontation. Mike prayed to Dannagaur, and a deluge of ectoplasmic slime rained down over the area, purifying the desecrated ground and restoring hope to the party.
The twins reacted with fury at seeing their carefully corrupted battleground cleansed, but their anger turned to anticipation as a new figure materialized. The towering form in blackened armor from Mike's vision appeared, its skull glowing with sickly green fire, walking directly toward Mike while ignoring everyone else. The voice echoed in Mike's head: "You have been chosen for judgment. And judgment has come." The twins summoned their forces—Lilith raised a horde of zombies from the water while Veyran commanded a massive, multi-armed homunculus. The Revenant struck Mike twice with its spectral blade, cutting through his spirit and causing all nearby allies to lose hope with each devastating blow.
The party engaged the summoned creatures while trying to support each other. The zombie legion attacked Greg and The Traveler, while Mike's armor flew apart and reconstructed itself as he prepared to fight. Greg barely scrambled away from a massive undead creature's attack, and Mike healed his companion in an unconventional manner by slapping him while in his slime form. The Traveler cast a protective ward on Mike that would save him from a fatal blow, while Lena and Sybil focused their assault on the dangerous Revenant. The spectral hunter retaliated by paralyzing The Traveler with its penance stare, freezing him in place and rendering him unable to act.
Frustrated by the party's resistance, the twins declared it was time to unleash their apex creations. Two massive undead creatures burst from nearby houses—the Glomtower Thrall with a cage of skeletons attached to its arm, and the Terrorgut with dark magic flowing through it and a gaping mouth in its abdomen. Fighting paralysis, Lena gathered her power and struck the Revenant with devastating force. Vines grew up and wrapped around the hunter's legs as she leaped onto its chest, grabbed its skull, and spat into it. The skull began to dissolve inward as she siphoned its essence, and the Revenant's physical form evaporated completely, leaving the twins surprised at the display of necromantic power.
With the immediate threat eliminated, Traveler called for a pause in the battle and began to parley with the twins. He argued that they were wasting their time competing with each other when they should be testing their creations against real targets like archbishops. Mike added that the twins were being manipulated by their father, The Belarch, who was keeping them distracted and stealing their glory by confining them to this backwater town. Traveler persuaded Lilith that her brother was being gaslighted and that they should focus on a common enemy rather than each other.
The twins paused to consider these arguments, conversing with each other about the strangers' words. They acknowledged that their father had indeed kept them away from his "toys" and that they hadn't seen him since he kicked them out of seminary years ago. The competitive siblings agreed that showing their father what their creations could do would be far more satisfying than continuing their stalemate in Gravenhollow. They called off their zombie horde and apex creations, which retreated into the water and houses. The twins agreed to ally with the party against The Belarch, promising they would be ready when the party struck against their father. With preparations to make, the twins disappeared, leaving the party victorious through clever manipulation and diplomacy rather than continued bloodshed.