: The Deceiver crossed the Cloudspine. The Journal of Myth
: I says so. He may later have been driven back there
: and defeated, but he definitely did some ravaging and
: killing before he left.
You mean that the armies of the West, who were busy as Hell defending their homelands, would first have been beaten up by The Deceiver and then turned the fight, chased him back into the Stair of Grief before Balor was killed and defeat him *and* his army?
: Who would defeat him up at the
: Stair? The Light needed every man they had to defend
: the southern passes.
And didn't they need someone to defend the northern passes?
: It sure sounds like the Deceiver
: crossing up north was a surprise, and that there
: wasn't anyone there to fight him--he "crossed the
: mountains at the Stair of Grief", it didn't say
: that he "fought his way through the Stair of
: Grief" or anything that implied opposition.
I don't see what the surprise seems to have been. The journal writer tells of many battles and events in the same manner. To me it seems more like Bungie tweaked the story a bit. There is no specific mention of what happened at the Stair of Grief, even if it seems it was a victory for The Deceiver. It made for a good way of keeping him alive.
: Only after Alric came back from the war and marshalled
: whatever troops were left alive in the West was The
: Deceiver defeated.
The armies of the Dark collapsed after Balor was killed. Each of the Fallen Lords were bound to him in some way. Without him they were much weakened as far as I can tell. There are also no accounts of fighting after Balor's head was thrown in the The Great Devoid.
The best evidence I have, though, seems to be this:
"Today the Dramus River is frozen solid, but back then it was a muddy torrent of melted snow and ice brought on by the eruption of Tharsis. The Deceiver was plunged into the river and swept far downstream, his scepter sinking to the bottom."
Journal entry from "The Stair of Grief"
Now, the chronology of this is still strange, but it would make litte sense that Myrdred crossed the Stair of Grief alive and was later chased back to be trapped in ice. The Deceiver's crossing of the Stair of Grief was somewhere between November 30th of the seventeenth year of the war and May 23rd of the eighteenth year of the war. I dunno how long the Dramus river would be a muddy torrent due to the eruption of Tharsis, but I find it highly unlikely that it was anytime after May 19th of the eighteenth year of the Great War, which would be the time after which any battles in the west would be fought. I would (though logical conclusions) probably put them sometime in June or July, though, which makes it even more unlikely that The Deceiver took part in the sacking of the Western cities.
Peter Isotalo
