Our column stepped cautiously through the shattered streets of the ruined city, silent, save for the stomping mechs and rattling armor of the surviving infantry. The air was thick with the stench of decay and the coppery scent of spilled blood. A cool breeze blew into the viewports, as well as through the gaps in my cockpit where the undead had almost pried their way inside.

As we advanced toward the keep at the center of the city, all conversations among the gnomes and our human allies ceased. It was like we were all waiting for the next shoe to drop, but our scouts clearing the nearby buildings confirmed the undead were gone from the area.

"Unreal, isn't it?" one of the gnomish soldiers near my mech said. "Never thought we'd be walking through a ghost town unopposed like this after the attacks we’ve been facing."

"Agreed," I responded, my voice betraying uncertainty. If only I could shake the feeling that something sinister still lurked within this ruined city, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

With my position now being at the back of our column, I could survey the full extent of the carnage as we passed the earlier ambush sites. It had been a costly battle, one that claimed nearly two hundred infantry from our forces and another pair of our precious mechs. But at last, the undead reserves seemed to have been vanquished.

"Rico, keep an eye out for any movement to our rear," Fitzfazzle ordered over the comm crystal. He sounded as tired and anxious as I felt.

"Nothing yet, it’s eerily quiet out here." I said to myself.

"Stay on your guard," the war priest, who seemed to have attached himself to our company, cautioned. His warning nearly echoed the one Fitzfazzle had just given to me. "Pharox won't go down without a fight."

"Understood." I shouted down to the man, my heart racing in my chest as the weight of responsibility bore down heavily upon me. If we missed any sign of the enemy, they could roll up our forces from behind while Pharox sortied from the keep. I was too close to the end of this to let anything slip now.

Despite the destruction around us, I couldn't help but feel a sense of awe as I piloted my mech through the ruined cityscape. To think that long ago, this place had been teeming with life – bustling markets, laughter-filled taverns, and the harmonious clinking of smithy hammers against anvils. Now, all that remained were the echoes of the past, haunting reminders of what had been lost.

Before long, we reached the center of the city where the imposing form of the keep stood. Unlike the rest of the city, the keep seemed to have been maintained in reasonable repair. The massive, iron-banded, outer gates of the keep were recently constructed and well fitted. I figured that the undead had reinforced this position as word reached them of our advance through the swamps.

Unlike the city walls, where figures could be seen lurking among the ruins, there was no movement on the battlements of the keep. The square around the keep was huge, several hundred yards of open space had been cleared from the ruins, providing building materials for the keep’s repair, as well as an open killing ground for whatever undead remained.

I watched as the wagons holding the gnomish siege engines lumbered into position. Engineers, bolstered by human soldiers that had volunteered to assist, began to haul out the pieces to the engines and begin their assembly. The keep stood ominously before us, its gates dark, imposing, and seemingly undefended. It was almost too easy. We were just outside of bowshot, but you never knew what Pharox might have planned for us.

Near the siege engines, I could see the surviving mechs gather and the pilots emerge to join Warmaster Glumbleflump to hear his plans for the assault on the keep. I followed suit, parking my mech near Lumpy’s machine which seemed to have survived relatively unscathed from the push through the ruined city. In addition to Lumpy, Fitzfazzle and a gnome named Glintzbuggle were the other remaining pilots.

"We’re going straight in once the siege engines have done their work. We have the keep surrounded and Pharox cannot try to escape without us knowing it. This will be the final assault," Warmaster Glumbleflump's voice rang out, sharp and commanding. "Fitzfazzle, you and the other three surviving MESS pilots will lead the charge once the gates are down. Right behind you will be the infantry, and the cavalry form up in case they’re needed."

A dozen of the sturdy rams nibbled on feed or sucked down buckets of water as their riders tended to them. The beasts had seemed small when compared to the human war horses when I had first seen them, but they, and their riders, had proven a worthy counter to the enemy’s skeletal minions.

"We’ll be ready, the mages are topping off our mana now," Fitzfazzle replied. My heart pounded in my chest. This was it - the moment of truth. I couldn't help but wonder if we were truly ready to face the nightmare that awaited us within those walls.

With a thunderous crash, the gnomish siege engines unleashed their payloads, sending large boulders and ballista bolts crashing into the gates. The impact shook the very ground beneath our feet. Slowly but surely, the gates began to splinter and crumble under the relentless barrage.

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With only four mechs remaining, we had two mages at each machine. One was pushing mana into the mech itself, while the other tried to recharge as many wands as they could before the attack commenced. The battle hadn’t been going on for too long, but any extra charge we could get for our machines, I was in favor of.

As the gates finally buckled and fell, the siege engines shifted focus, the ballistae fired through the open gate into the courtyard beyond. Shadows from the keep and rubble in courtyard blocked our view of any defenders, but whatever might be waiting should be softened up by the attack. Our catapults shifted to smaller stones that lobbed over the keeps wall to shatter anything caught out in the open.

After around thirty minutes, the mages stepped back from our mechs, and we climbed back into the cockpits. Fitzfazzle and Glintzbuggle would lead the assault in their smaller, first generation mechs. Lumpy and me would follow hot on their heels, ready to deal with whatever the necromancer had planned for us.

Around two hundred gnomish infantry, forty human soldiers, the ram cavalry, one of the war priests, and four gnomish mages would follow behind us. Our other surviving forces were spread out around the keep, watching for any signs of a breakout. Scouts were positioned further out, watching for anything moving in the city.

Warmaster Glumbleflump had even sent the second war priest, along with Sir Goodwin and a few squads of infantry to search the nearby crypt. The place was abandoned, and whatever supply of remains it might have once housed had already been pillaged by the necromancer.

“Something’s happening, mana is building inside the keep. A powerful ritual is being formed somewhere in there. It must be why Pharox hasn’t tried to escape, he’s counting on this ritual to do something nasty to us. Be prepared for anything,” Fitzfazzle ordered. He was the most powerful mage among the gnomes and if he was feeling something brewing from all the way out here past the keep, I was a little worried.

The signal was given, and we began our assault. Our mechs stomped across the square, and nothing moved to oppose us. The now-shattered outer gates to the courtyard left just enough room for a pair of mechs to pass at a time. Fitzfazzle and Glintzbuggle passed through, then it was time for me and Lumpy.

Once inside the keep, I could see rubble strewn about the courtyard, and oddly enough, the portcullis and smaller gate leading into the keep itself were wide open. Fitzfazzle and Glintzbuggle were marching right toward the open door, and I moved to follow. The gate to the keep would be just wide enough for my mech to pass through, but depending on what we found beyond that door, we may be forced to dismount and continue the battle on foot.

Suddenly, bright green portals flickered on the walls of the keep around us. The magic looked different than the blue mana of a summoning spell. This magic may be a different sort than I was used to, but it seemed to perform a similar function.

Skeletons, dressed in tattered robes and wielding wooden staves stepped from the portals that immediately closed behind them. As one, their hollow eye sockets began to glow with an eerie blue light. Before we could react, the skeletons, which had to be mages of some sort, began to cast spells, mana glowing on their staves and hands as they worked.

"Damn it! We're sitting ducks!" Glintzbuggle cried, panic evident in his voice as larger skeletal figures pulled themselves from the piles of rubble in front of us. The giant, twelve-foot-tall skeletons moved to block our mechs as the mages on the walls above finished their spells. In their hands, the giants wielded long scythes that gleamed with green mana as they charged our mechs.

“Rico, you and Lumpy take down the mages, we’ll work on these big boys,” Fitzfazzle said just before the lead mechs were hit by the spells from the skeletal mages. There was no explosion, or lightning bolts shooting forth, instead, the exterior of the mechs targeted by the spells began to flash as the spells landed.

At first, nothing seemed to happen, then a leg of Fitzfazzle’s mech seized up. One of his mech’s arms then dropped limp at his side, the long spear it held clattering to the ground. Glintzbuggle seemed to have similar problems when one of his magic missile launchers detached from the mech and fell.

“They’re hitting us with Fail Weapons spells, stop them, Rico!” Fitzfazzle shouted through the comm crystal.

Not wasting any time, Lumpy and I started firing magic missiles at the mages as fast as we could while keeping an eye on what was happening to our comrades. A few of the mages shifted their fire to my mech. I felt the mana in my machine resist the intrusive spell. Only a few were casting toward my mech, most focused on Fitzfazzle and Glintzbuggle.

Remembering what Master Fazzlemore had told me about the spell, enchanted items could resist Fail Weapons, at least the lower tiers of the spell. Whatever was hitting us was more powerful than the tier zero version I had learned, and even though the mana infusing my mech tried to fight off the assault, it was only a matter of time before the machine started to fail.

Skeletal mages easily fell to the magic missiles that we were pouring out, but the damage had been done, and Fitzfazzle’s mech collapsed to the ground as a second leg seized up and the torso began to spin wildly. Glintzbuggle was still mobile, but it looked like he couldn’t change direction as his mech stomped its way toward the trio of giant skeletons and their gleaming scythes.

With a flurry of slashes, the three skeletons shredded Glintzbuggle’s mech. The poor gnome didn’t stand a chance, and I thought I could hear him scream over the sounds of battle. The blades the skeletons wielded cut through mech armor like it was paper, and when one sliced deep into the cockpit, Glintzbuggle’s mech collapsed face down. Given the pool of blood forming under it, I didn’t think my gnomish ally was going to survive.

Fitzfazzle’s mech was next, two swipes left the machine without legs, but they passed by without finishing him off, intent to get at the remaining mechs. Two of the giants targeted my mech and one targeted Lumpy. I triggered a single magic missile at my attackers before several Fail Weapons spells landed on the launcher, overpowering my mech’s mana and causing the bolts holding the launcher on my mech to pop out.

As the magic missile launcher fell off my mech, I was left with just my blunderbuss and a spear against the two monstrosities that were barreling toward me. In the distance, the ground trembled ominously as some fresh threat prepared to make itself known.