Diablo 3: Hell's Eclipse

Thanks to the teleportation device, a warp pad or whatever the ancients called it, they were able to get Deckard back to New Tristram without wasting too much time, where Luna found that the Militia was following Rumford's orders and the dead they were able to kill were being burned to prevent them from coming back to life again.

"Uncle, I'm so glad you are safe." Leah said, and that was the truth, there was relief on her face as she stared at her uncle, who was no worse than before the Fallen Star slammed into the cathedral, meaning he had likely used a spell of sorts to save himself from some serious injuries.

"Yes, it is due to the timely arrival of you and Luna." Deckard replied, though this time he wasn't joking, Luna's lessons had boosted Leah's confidence in using and controlling her powers, the very powers he had dreaded for the longest time, due to the potential of them being linked to one of the seven Evils, before he sighed, "I'm afraid that the Prophecy of the End Times has started to come true, the Fallen Star came from the Heavens and now the dead are rising once more."

"Aye, the Skeleton King... Mad King Leoric, raised into undeath once more." Luna said, as she knew the tale, it was one that Deckard had told her when she asked about the history of Old Tristram, so she could learn more about New Tristram and the surrounding area, and his return wasn't a good thing for them, "Fortunately he's just a specter, otherwise we might be in real trouble... but judging from the passage the Fallen Star carved through the cathedral's various floors, it looks like it might have fallen all the way down to his tomb. Meaning we'll have to put the Skeleton King down once more, before we can even begin to understand what the Fallen Star actually is... unfortunately there's an elegant door blocking the way deeper, and while I could deal with it with my magic, I would rather find the key first."

"I would suggest speaking to Haedrig, as he and his family are the only one who know where Leoric's crown was hidden all those years ago." Deckard said, as that happened to be the key to opening the locked door that Luna had mentioned, in fact he was positive that it was the only one, so since they needed to know what the Fallen Star was, and what it meant, that told all of them that dealing with the Skeleton King was important for multiple reasons now, "I noticed that three smaller objects broke off of the Fallen Star, before it slammed into the cathedral, and I am curious as to what clues they might have for us, so while you deal with the Skeleton King, and the risen, I shall see if I can track down the fragments."

Luna nodded and turned towards the blacksmith's portion of the market area they were in, since that was where she was expecting Haedrig to be in, only to find that he wasn't at his workshop, causing her to ask the Militia if they knew his location, given his knowledge on the crown's whereabouts. As it turned out Haedrig had been tasked with looking over those who had been harmed by the risen, who had been locked in a basement near the edge of New Tristram that went in the direction of the graveyard, as in the tombs that no one visited anymore. When Luna questioned why there were hurt people she learned that a few of the people had been out when the risen first arrived and had gotten away with a few minor cuts and scratches, but they were worried that they might turn into more risen, hence why they had been locked up. With that in mind Luna and Leah headed for the northern part of New Tristram, where the pair found that many of the people seemed worried about the risen, Luna even found that the Mayor was trying to flee and his wagon wheel had broken, leaving him stranded on the side of the road.

It didn't take them long to track down Haedrig, who was standing under one of the lights with a worried look on his face, a fact that told Luna and Leah that he must have received bad news while they were gone, though both hoped that it wouldn't stop him from telling them where the crown was located.

"Haedrig, can you spare a moment? We need to ask you something, and it's not about my weapons." Luna said, because she knew that the blacksmith had to be annoyed by the fact that she had a habit of breaking her various weapons over time, or not since he seemed to like working with gear, but hoped he'd be willing to speak with them.

"Sorry, I'm... well, conflicted. I've just been ordered to eliminate those who have been bitten by the risen, as we've confirmed that they are capable of turning into walking corpses." Haedrig replied, causing the pair to stand there in shock for a couple of seconds, as neither of them had been aware of how bad things were getting, which meant that the infected must have been in the area leading to the graveyard, before the smith sighed, "Look, it's... it's my wife. She was bitten while she was out gathering herbs for the Militia... I can put my friends to rest with ease, even though my heart will be heavy, but... but how can I put down my own loving wife?"

"You can't. No one could ask you to do such a thing... so let us do it instead." Leah said, as working with Luna had awakened many things inside her, especially the sense of doing the right thing even if the person who should be doing it couldn't, so in this instance she was willing to offer their services in hopefully letting the infected go before they turned, or eliminating the risen if they had turned, "All we ask is that you tell us where to find Leoric's old crown."

Haedrig nodded and lead them down the street that was behind where he stopped, bringing the pair to a cellar that he just stared at for a moment before opening it, allowing them to descend into the cellar and discovered that most of the people down here were already dead, and Haedrig's wife was in agonizing pain. Luna realized what was going on immediately as she called out for Leah to get ready, where she and the blacksmith watched as the dead and wounded clawed their way into the realm of the undead, becoming risen as their flesh rotted before their eyes. Mira, Haedrig's wife, screamed in agony as her body twisted and contorted, her lungs filled with the same vile substance that the retching risen had possessed, which she coughed up as she turned into a risen, and it wasn't long before the life in her eyes was replaced with the desire to spread the curse of undeath to New Tristram. Haedrig, naturally, couldn't do this task, he couldn't raise his axe against his friends or his wife, even if they were now counted among the risen that sought to devour the living, where Luna and Leah attacked in his stead, the former cutting through them and catching their bodies with her magic as the latter stunned them with some of her arrows.

Together the two of them were able to stop the risen from spreading the undead plague to the rest of the town, and once Luna was sure there were no more left she magically hauled the remains of the risen out of the cellar and headed across the bridge, out into the area that she and Leah trained in, before setting fire to the bodies, after retrieving Mira's amulet so Haedrig could have something to remember her by.

"Th... Thank you. Both of you." Haedrig said, though he was surprised by how Leah had actually jumped into battle, despite the fact that she had far less training than the Militia did, he was eternally grateful to the pair for stepping in when he should have, taking care of the risen that had once been some of New Tristram's residents, "I can help you find the Mad King's crown, as my grandfather was his councilor and the crown was buried with him, and you'll find his tomb in the graveyard, in one of the larger tombs... I don't know which one, but he's there somewhere. And if you see my fool apprentice out there, tell him to come home before the risen get to him."

Luna nodded her head, even though she wished the man had more information to share with them, but this just confirmed that no one cared about the Mad King or those associated with him, meaning they were going to have to guess which tomb had Haedrig's grandfather and the crown. As they headed out, however, the pair came into contact with the scavengers, a hideous beastly creature that was like a vicious badger and feasted on carrion and corpses, so now that New Tristram was being plagued by the risen it made sense that the scavengers would come out as well. Leah eliminated them with flaming arrows, setting their bodies on fire as a precaution, while at the same time Luna focused on the risen that were nearby, due to the fact that there were many of them in the fields, more than they were expecting. It was like the entire graveyard had been raised from their graves and were now being sent against the living, where Luna rushed forward and slashed her foes apart with her greatsword, making sure to crush their bodies and then set some on fire, those Leah didn't target.

As they started to move across the field, however, the pair spotted a ruined house and discovered that Haedrig's apprentice was laying dead on the ground, only to rise with all of the other risen that were in the area, so the pair simply sighed as they granted him mercy before leaving a pile of smouldering corpses behind.

The amount of risen that were out here really gave Leah a chance to practice with her spells, as Luna knew that she had a large pool of mana, no doubt because of who her mother was, since Adria had been focused on magic and Leah had likely inherited many of her talents. Such a thing included hurling chunks of ice at her targets, trying to summon lightning on the risen, or do whatever came into her head, as she had the power to do more than she ever thought, and Luna had allowed her to tap into her true power, which she was using to protect people. Luna also released a bit of her magic as well, striking enemies in the distance to avoid ruining Leah's progress, and made sure to burn the bodies as well, where she found that they were leaving a long line of burning bodies. In addition to that she found that the risen really didn't weaken her weapons all that much, allowing her to maintain the edge of her greatsword for the time being, while cutting through the risen so she and Leah could reach the decaying and collapsing graveyard.

"So, which one should we look in first?" Luna asked, as there were three large tombs, mausoleums she noted, in the fair sized graveyard, and she guessed that either they were connected to the same massive underground system or each one was linked to their own area, so she was willing to ask Leah for her opinion on the matter.

"I think that one." Leah replied, because while she didn't know which mausoleum that Haedrig's grandfather had been buried in, in fact she was sure only her uncle knew that fact given the amount of time he looked into the past, before she paused for a moment as she realized what she had been thinking, "Wait, Uncle Deckard might know... we should act him if he knows."

Luna considered that for a moment and agreed with Leah, her uncle was likely the best person they could ask, and based on what she was seeing there was one of the teleportation devices nearby, to which she carefully activated it and allowed Leah to warp back to the town on her own. As she expected Luna stood there for about five minutes before Leah returned with a smile on her face, as she happened to be right, her uncle had told her that the very mausoleum she had guessed at was the one that held both Haedrig's grandfather and the crown. Of course Luna wasn't annoyed with Deckard, he had no idea that Leoric's crown had been buried with the old councilor and clearly hadn't thought of that possibility, and she was happy that Leah had guessed the location correctly, allowing them to enter the mausoleum. Sure enough there were risen inside it, not that they were surprised by that fact since every corpse and skeleton in the area seemed to be rising from the dead, which caused the pair to engage their foes once more as they kept their eyes out for the crown.

As they delved into the depths of the mausoleum Luna slashed her way through the bloated risen and the lesser ones, all while Leah provided constant support as she focused her magic into arrows and then loosed the flaming arrows into those she was focused on. In addition to that they discovered that the ghosts of those who had been buried here were also forced into undeath as well, as there were ghosts of graverobbers and people who were likely wrongfully slain wandering down the halls of the mausoleum, and they hated the living as well. It was a surprise to see just how much influence the Skeleton King had, how far his power reached, especially since he was someone who had been forced to serve the Lord of Terror, Diablo himself, after his human body was slain, but Luna focused on the battles ahead of her. She also made sure to stop every now and then for Leah, who wasn't used to fighting this much and she could tell that the girl was huffing every now and then as they moved against the risen, but she was doing well for her first real adventure.

Despite running into some dead ends, due to the tunnels collapsing over the years, Luna found their destination, stairs that moved down into the next floor of the mausoleum, causing them to repeat fighting the risen that were down here while they searched for something, anything really, that might belong to the councilor.

Fortunately the path was short and it brought them to a regal looking door, one that was smashed open by a monster of a risen, a large one, far larger than the bloated eel carriers, which looked like it was a bunch of bodies that had been buried in a mass grave, mixed with soil and earth. Luna found that it's 'skin' was tougher than she was expecting, which she blamed on the unholy magic that had given it life, because when she swung her greatsword the edge cracked instantly, much to both her and Leah's surprise, to which Luna swung it again and let the blade shatter. She then used her magic to force the shards of the greatsword into the unburied, or whatever this risen was called, causing it to roar in pain before she and Leah lashed out with their magic, tearing into the vile beast. This combination allowed them to bring down the massive undead, which was followed by them pausing for a couple of seconds, just to be sure that there were no more enemies in the immediate area, before Luna found a few lances, blades, and some axes that were dropped from the beast.

"Good, I'm going to need these in case more of those show up." Luna said, collecting all of the weapons that fell from the massive risen beast, choosing the pair of axes this time around as she and Leah moved into the passage that was behind the now ruined door that the beast had torn through.

Leah said nothing to that as they delved even deeper into the mausoleum, finding magical risen that had the power to raise even more undead to do battle against the living, something Luna had Leah destroy with one of her arrows, which Leah did gladly since more summoner types was something they didn't need right now. Following that they discovered a crown on a pedestal, though that was when the spirit of a councilor, Haedrig's grandfather no doubt, appeared before them and just attacked them without saying a word, like he thought they were here to raise Leoric from his grave. Luna discovered that the spirit had a bit of magical power to keep the crown from thieves, or Leoric's followers, and since he didn't seem interested in talking Luna dodged the weak spells that were coming her way before cutting the spirit into fourths with her axes. With that done she put her axes away and walked up to the pedestal, an altar she realized, where she took the damaged crown, likely a final defense mechanism, but a single shared look between her and Leah was all they needed right now, Haedrig could help them fix the crown.

With that in hand, and no more risen coming, Luna had Leah stand nearby as she used her magic to warp them out of the mausoleum and brought them back to the center of New Tristram, where they found Haedrig back at his workshop, who agreed to help fix the crown, causing the pair to rest for a time while they waited for him to reform the crown, and then they could tackle the Skeleton King and see what the Fallen Star might be.