Diablo 3: Hell's Eclipse

Upon returning to New Tristram it didn't take Luna long to land outside the Slaughtered Calf Inn, where she and Leah quickly headed into the room that they shared, since all of the buildings had been taken and there was nowhere for Luna to call home, hence her current arrangement. Fortunately there had been enough room inside Leah's room that they were able to add a second bed so they could both sleep soundly at night, though for right now neither of them focused on that as Leah grabbed her bow and quiver, her only weapons. Luna, on the other hand, slipped on a few pieces of mail armor, bits that Haedrig had been able to make her over the last week, which was mostly bracers and the leg guards, though supposedly he was working on lightweight plate armor for her. In addition to that Luna had a few weapons, such as a greatsword, a pair of swords, and a battleaxe, all of which she collected and put on, as she made sure to have extra weapons in case one broke on her while she was fighting.

Once they were done the pair emerged from the inn and headed outside, where Luna snapped an order at the Militia that were still in the town, making sure they were at the walls in case danger came knocking, because if what she had seen was any indication the Militia would be needed to keep an eye on things.

"Where is Rumford? He'll be acting as the one in charge while Captain Daltyn is out." Luna asked, as she had dedicated a bit of her time to learn the names of the members of the Militia, even though right now it was clear that Daltyn and fifteen of his men were no longer in New Tristram, since they had hurried off towards the cathedral.

"He went with the Captain, Ma'am." one of the other Militia soldiers replied, which caused both Luna and Leah to look at him before nodding their heads to allow the soldiers to focus on their tasks, as Luna was surprised that the Captain and his Second would leave together, instead of just one leaving and ensuring the other remained to watch the town.

"Fantastic, there's no Third for the Militia." Leah commented, because Daltyn had only specified Rumford as the next one in line to lead the group, should something happen to him, but neither had said who might replace both of them, so for the time being Luna snapped a few orders at the Militia and made sure the soldiers were ready to defend New Tristram, "It's a shame you never actually joined the Militia, you could have taken Daltyn and Rumford's place."

"Sure, I could have done that... but I'm a mare of action... woman, sorry... and I'm tired of sitting around while others are in the middle of fighting." Luna said, referring to the fact that most of Celestia's plans recently had involved using the Elements of Harmony and their Wielders to resolve the various obstacles and messes that Equestria got into, like the time that they had been invaded by the changelings, she had been elsewhere that day, or when Sombra returned, "Though flying might have to wait for a time, as we should deal with the undead that are getting close to town, cut down on the dangers that the rest of the Militia might face while we're gone."

Leah sighed and nodded her head, as while she wanted to go after her uncle she also knew that cutting down on the horde of the undead was the smartest move for them to make right now, especially since it would make it easier for the Militia to defend New Tristram from whatever was happening. As they started down the path, however, the pair confirmed that the risen dead had reached New Tristram, as there were decaying bodies shambling towards the gate that the Militia were going to defend, plus female ones with red cloth hoods that were puking some substance onto the ground. Luna realized what that substance did, it was spreading the undead plague on the ground, as the ground and foliage that was around the female risen was literally dying before her very eyes, something that awakened the dead that might be buried in the ground. This told her and Leah that the retching risen needed to be targeted first, least they spread the undead plague to everything and everyone that was around them, something that caused Luna to nod to Leah before rushing at the risen.

She was putting her faith in Leah, because while she knew that Leah hadn't fought anything like this before, save for maybe hunting when she and Deckard traveled in the past, Luna suspected that having someone trust her like she was would bring out the heroine that was inside her. Luna focused on swinging her smaller weapons at the risen, finding that they were able to cut through their undead bodies with ease, which made sense due to the fact that they were literally rotting and didn't have the natural defenses a living body might have. As she expected Leah had her back almost immediately, loosing one of her arrows into the head of a risen that was near the group Luna was cutting down, causing it to stagger backwards before Luna spun and cut it down as well. The one that was more interesting for her happened to be the bloated one, which was an odd thing for a corpse that had been buried within the last year, and when she cut it down the upper portion of the body came free and crawled after her while the lower half remained still.

"Good to know: the bloated ones can split in half." Luna commented, taking a moment to swing her swords and clean them of the blood that had gotten on them, before she glanced back at Leah for a few seconds, who was looking at the slain risen with a look of disgust on her face, even though it was likely mixed with the urge to throw up since this was the first time she had attacked a living thing, despite it being the risen, "Leah, breathe. I'm here, you're fine, and the dead have been returned to their graves, in a sense. Do you remember how to use the fire spell I taught you?"

Leah locked eyes with Luna for a couple of seconds, grateful for the lady being there, before nodding as she carefully held a hand out and forced herself to calm down as she let out a tiny bit of flame at the bodies of the risen, setting them on fire so they couldn't rise again. Luna nodded and did the same thing, using a small bit of her own fire magic to ignite some of the other corpses that had been slain, ensuing that none of them came back to bite the Militia or the people of the town, plus it gave Leah more practice with her magic. In addition to that she found a few more risen that were feasting on slain cows and other once living animals, it was easy to see their bodies as the undead tore out their organs and devoured them, spilling blood all over the decaying ground. For Leah it was a sickening and gruesome scene, especially when she found someone from the town that had been out before the Fallen Star collided with the cathedral, but for Luna, who faced nightmares for the ponies of her home world, this was nothing compared to their nightmares.

As she thought about that, however, she and Leah found Rumford resting against one of the fence posts that were ahead of them, looking like he had been through Hell itself, something that caused Leah to pull out a healing potion and let him drink it, healing his wounds as he coughed for a few seconds.

"Rumford, what happened to the others?" Leah asked, because she was hoping that they were near the cathedral, since that had been Daltyn's plan from the very beginning, and to find one of the Militia out here, with no one else nearby, meant they might be in trouble.

"Dead. Some idiots broke rank and got the Captain and everyone else killed... I'm honestly not sure how I escaped, given the chaos that was going on." Rumford replied, which was definitely not good news for them, especially since it meant Luna had wasted her time training people who just died instantly and hoped that the rest of the Militia would be able to protect the town while they were looking for Deckard.

"Follow this path and head back to New Tristram... and tell the Militia that burning the bodies of the risen will help keep their numbers down." Luna stated, where the man nodded his head and forced himself to stand once more, though as he walked down the worn path, heading to the bridge leading back to the town, she and Leah continued up the path that would bring them to Old Tristram.

The ruins were of the original town, where a lot of madness and death happened in the past, Deckard had told her a bit of what went down in that place in the past, though Luna shelved those thoughts for a time as she rushed at the risen, cutting through the thinner ones as she beheaded the retching one first. Leah provided support in the form of flaming arrows, as Luna had told her how she might be able to use her magic to make arrows and fire had been the first element they landed on, as it was the one that she had the greatest affinity for. Such a thing allowed her to strike some of the other risen without wasting her actual arrows, showing Luna that she was taking the lessons seriously and was listening to her suggestions, to which Luna spilled the corrupted blood of the risen and they set the corpses on fire as they continued down the worn path they were following. Luna considered themselves fortunate, as none of the burning piles they left behind were near the trees that happened to be in the area, so they didn't have to worry about a forest fire and allowed both her and Leah to focus on taking care of the risen.

Old Tristram itself was packed full of the risen, a number of retching undead, some of the splitters, while the majority were the normal ones, and she found that there was a regal looking one, maybe the former Queen or something, where Luna just sighed as she flashed through the ruins. Leah found that the figure slashed through some of the risen, while also releasing what appeared to be bolts of fire that slammed into some of the others, though she steeled herself and loosed a few fiery arrows into the enemies that Luna wasn't targeting. Such a thing reminded her of the fact that Luna was an alicorn, one of the strongest forces on her home world, and she was the warrior princess, who fought enemies while her sister usually sat on her rear all day, even though she suspected Celestia only fought when absolutely necessary. She still hated the smell of burning flesh and blood that was in the air, from all of the risen foes that they were hitting, though while this happened she also found that Luna's sword snapped in half, causing the warrior to shrug as she discarded them and used the greatsword next.

In the end it took them no time to actually wipe out the rest of the risen that were in the collapsed ruins that happened to be Old Tristram, where Luna looked through some of the old weapon racks and the weapons that the risen had on them, most of which she left behind, save for a nicer looking sword and mace.

"Can't you hold back a little more?" Leah asked, not because she wanted more of a challenge, rather her comment was due to the fact that Luna had a habit of breaking weapons and discarding them, often leaving her to collect the pieces so they could be delivered to Haedrig to be melted down.

"Sorry, I'm just too used to wielding Nightfell... I kind of want a weapon like that, without summoning it." Luna replied, as her personal weapon was the only one that could withstand her full power, and none of the weapons of this world had come close to matching it's power, before she used her magic to force open the gate that was in front of them, where she quickly understood something, "This should bring us to your mother's old place, right?"

Leah nodded and said nothing else about the subject, as Luna knew that Adria, Leah's mother, was supposed to be dead and all this meant was that they would be trespassing in her mother's past for a short while, before Leah reminded her that the only thing she knew about her father was that he died when Old Tristram fell to the demons. Other than that there weren't any risen on the other side of the gate leading out of the ruins, allowing them to make their way to Adria's hut, which just so happened to be where some risen were waiting for them. Luna cut her way through them with ease, a single hit cut them all down, before Leah found a hidden cellar that no one else had found before, it was easy since one of the risen moved part of the floor out of the way, allowing them to head down into what appeared to be a witch's cauldron area. It was then that they found out the fate of Captain Daltyn, as he had been slain and raised into a powerful risen, as he now wielded the power of ice to freeze those he fought, which Luna found to be a bad match up as she let Leah release a burst of fire that torched his body to ash.

Leah huffed after that and leaned against one of the earthen walls that were around them, leaving Luna to search the area for anything that might be useful for their mission, before she located what appeared to be an important key and a journal from Adria herself, something Leah decided she'd look at later, when Deckard was safe.

Following that they left the cellar and headed up the hill that was behind the hut, where Luna realized that this must be a different path from what Deckard usually used, but that didn't stop her and Leah from cutting and burning through the risen that were between them and the cathedral. When they finally returned to the cathedral it didn't take them long to open the door and approach where the smouldering crater was located, where Luna pulled Leah close before opening her wings as she floated down the hole, which was definitely large enough for her wings. She could have probably jumped down into the depths, but with Leah she needed to go a little slower, though fortunately it didn't take them long to reach the elegant stone floor of the cathedral's first underground floor. Such a thing allowed them to see that the Fallen Star had fallen far lower in the structure than Leah had been expecting, in fact Luna could tell that it went down into the deepest and darkest depths of this place, causing them to separate for a moment as Luna readied her greatsword for battle.

The oddest thing about the Fallen Star's hole, in Luna's mind, was how it changed to light blue energy, almost like one of the Archangels had fallen to Sanctuary or something, but either way she was sure that this confirmed her thoughts, that they might have to fight the darkest foe that was buried in the depths of this place.

As they started to explore the cathedral, however, Luna realized that it was like a labyrinth, the path they were following was connected to a decent sized chamber that had three more paths linked to it, meaning they could head in three different paths, and from what she could tell there was no map for this place. It was also around the same time that they found a new type of risen, a large bloated one that was like a large fat person, though Luna honestly had no idea how an undead could take on such a form in the first place, given that they were dead bodies given new life. Either way that didn't stop her from hacking it up and then backing away with it exploded into a mass of parts and some slippery dark grey eels, risen like the rest of the creatures they were fighting, emerged from the destroyed body to attack them. Leah continued pointing out any enemies that Luna might be overlooking, often hitting her targets with a flaming arrow to help pinpoint where she wanted her to look, something that caused Luna to nod as she cut down the risen, and when they cleared a room the pair paused so Luna could magically gather the bodies for burning.

One other thing odd thing they discovered was that there were a few chests that still had loot inside them, meaning they had likely been missed when all of the adventurers came through to loot the cathedral a lifetime ago, though they were full small bags of gold and a few lesser items. In addition to that there were large bats that were decaying and risen as well, likely pour souls who had taken up residence inside the cathedral and had paid for that with their very lives, though the pair put them down and set fire to the pile of corpses that they left in their wake. It amazed Luna that there was so many risen inside this place, despite it being cleared out by the groups of adventurers years ago, though she also spotted smashed desks and the empty shelves that once held knowledge, making her wonder how much knowledge had been lost over the years. Luck was on their side, though, as the first floor didn't seem to be too large and Leah found the stairs leading deeper, causing Luna to head that way before discovering an area that seemed to have a large locked door and an area where the Fallen Star just smashed through.

Deckard came running up one of the side passages and happened to be fleeing from the ghost of what appeared to be the old King, confirming Luna's thoughts that the Skeleton King was rising, and this time it summoned skeletal warriors to hunt down the old man, where Luna jumped down and smashed them to dust with the greatsword.

"Luna, Leah! Oh, thank the Heavens that you've arrived." Deckard remarked, though at the same time he found that Luna cut down the skeletal warriors that had been formed from the specter's magic, while noticing that Leah was actually fighting this time around, instead of remaining in New Tristram, and together the small group of skeletal warriors perished in no time at all, "Come, I know of a secret way out."

Deckard walked over to one of the shelves and pulled something that was hidden on it, causing it to pull back and move out of the way, revealing a staircase leading upwards, one that happened to bring them right to one of the tombs outside the cathedral, where Luna found that there was a teleportation device and they used it to return to New Tristram, to help the old man recover before they figured out what their next move might be.