Editing Battle of Silverstone (section)

==A sudden assault==
The battle began very suddenly in the midafternoon on the 7th of Nachtur, when a massive column of blue fire erupted out of the plain a mile south of the city. A dozen or so floating monoliths emerged from the flames and fired powerful blasts of magic at the Lower City, leveling most of it in a matter of minutes. These blasts left torrents of blue fire that raised the dead into undeath, and twisted many of the survivors into aberrant horrors. The initial attack was followed up by the appearance of an army of foulspawn and undead, which swarmed into the city and quickly overwhelmed its defenders.

Despite the initial success of the assault, the city guard rallied from within the Middle and Upper Cities. The [[Challengers of the Unspeakable]] in particular were instrumental in scouting into the ruins of the Lower City to bring back early information about their enemy. In addition, they had previously found documents within Tephra's stronghold in the [[Fortress at World's End]] that suggested a number of exploitable weaknesses in the monoliths' construction. After repelling the initial attack and holding the line at the Midlight Gate, Commander [[Thoras]] organized a massive counterattack on the monoliths, dividing the city's defenders into several strike forces that succeeded in bringing them down. While this broke the initial assault on the city, more aberrations soon began emerging from the column of fire and regrouping.

The next day, Thoras led the bulk of the city's defenders against the aberrations' renewed assault, drawing them off while the Challengers of the Unspeakable led a team of wizards to attempt to penetrate the column. Utilizing a ritual scroll they had also found in Tephra's study, they called upon Orcus's power to protect them against the flames and entered the column, where they discovered an absolutely enormous aberration emerging from the ground itself. After destroying the creature's heart, its body withered into that of the former god [[Boccob]], who had been captured, tortured, and ultimately transformed by Tephra to spearhead the attack on Silverstone. At Boccob's request the [[half-orc]] [[Harthur]] used his axe, [[Farbane]], to kill him before he transformed back into the creature, dispelling the column of fire and ending the attack.