While the force was rather large, the height of the mountain above easily muffled the rumbling of their arrival. It was their siege weaponry that had slowed them down despite their relative closeness and the flatland of their great plateau. They were the adventurers and part of the city guard from Thornspire, a city to the east that had received the request of aid from Coppershear but two days before.

"Sir! For some reason the monsters are no longer attacking the town."

"What?! What are they doing?!"

The scout reported the situation after returning to their forward camp, bringing about a confused response from his the commander, as well as the small group of advisors present. They had expected to find Coppershear in ruins at the very least.

"There..." He paused and seemed to be a bit concern about how to relay the answer.

"Well?"

At his commander's urging he sighed and offered the no nonsense truth of the matter.

"They are fighting something at the base of the cliff south of the town. We can't make out any details because of all the fighting is stirring up a lot of dust and smoke. However, that is the confusing part. Given the concentration of monsters, and their numbers, it doesn't make sense we can't see the force fighting them."

The commander listened in silence with an intent stare and despite his experience in battle, and fighting monsters, he didn't seem to quite understand what the scout was trying to get at. Seeing that his commander didn't catch his meaning he offered a bit more.

"What I mean to say is that.. We don't believe there can be anymore than three people down there fight the entire swarm. If there were we would be able to see them."

"By the Keepers..."

That was the general consensus of everyone in the large tent, though their exact words varied a bit. The commander had known this particular scout for a good amount of time, and before today would have never thought to question his word. However, the look on the scout's face gave the commander pause, not because he seemed sincere, but because he was scared. Who... or what.. could go up against a swarm like that? Taking a deep breath the commander finally brought his own concerns under control and turned to the table with a map of the area spread out upon it. Reaching down he marked a spot with his finger that was only a little further west than where they currently were.

"Despite the situation the swarm's proximity to the cliffs is a great boon for us."

He paused for a second to consider some of the logistics before nodding and looking to his staff.

"Stop the advance, tell everyone to prepare the siege weapons and begin bombardment immediately. Even if they clip the edge of the cliff the debris will be almost as effective."

Most of the staff had seen the reason he felt the situation had a silver lining as they didn't have to spend anymore time marching. Because they needed to hit the swarm at the base of the cliff if they got too close to the edge their artillery would sail right over. Not only that but they were able to setup immediately as their current location provided a excellent trajectory.

"Sir!"

They responded as one before filing out of the tent to relay the orders as needed. Within 30 minutes of the report and subsequent orders the first Nel' Ina infused canister was arcing through the air and disappearing out of view beyond the cliff. Roughly 45 seconds later a boom sounded below and though they weren't sure of any damage yet they were already reloading the catapult. As they did so the nearly two dozen other catapults began firing off their payload one at a time.

The Thornspire campaign against the Cloudcrest swarm had commenced, though just as quickly as it had started it suddenly stopped with the unnatural gathering of clouds high above them. Everyone watched in silence, and growing dread, as the darkness crept in and the wind began to grow stronger. Soon the roaring of the cyclone became deafening and some in the forces began to skid along the ground, being pulled in by the windstorm. Thankfully no one was yanked from their feet that day, though had they been closer, in their originally planned positions, they wouldn't have been so lucky. The fact they had stopped when, and where, not only saved the force itself but also the siege weaponry.

In the moment though no one seemed to care about the details, they were simply trying to stay on the ground, and remain alive. At least until the violent eruption from below sent them all to their backs as the ground shook a violent intensity many feared the world was tearing apart. Men and women clung to what they could, even each other, to try and stay as close to the thrashing ground as possible. Oh, and then there was one more problem that reared its ugly head, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that they began to drop down into their laps.

The pull of the vortex at the base of the cliff, where Ethan and the monster battled, was tens of times stronger than at the top with the Thornspire forces and so an unknown number of smaller and medium sized monsters had been yanked right into the air and taken for a gut emptying ride due... up. Of course, even if it has wings, especially if those have been shredded by high winds, if it goes up, it must come down, or so they say. And down they came! Some even fell on their backs and necks, ending their part in the story in a rather messy fashion. However, most did not, and those that didn't die on impact instead began to do what swarms do best; go crazy.

With the monster's unofficial, and definitely unplanned, counter attack on the Thornspire forces atop the cliffs a second front to the battle was opened. Worry not, it wouldn't just be a two front fight, no, for from the west the forces from Cloudcrest had arrived just in time to see Ethan's "rage show" and receive his "gift" of flying monsters. Luckily for them the monsters had to travel a lot further before they arrived and thus more imploded "splatacularly" upon impact than did not, allowing the forces to continue on to the main swarm with little slowdown.