As we continued forward, signs of life in general began to steadily diminish. At first the occasional fields of crops and farmhouses could be seen in the distance, lining the road, but they slowly faded. Not entirely, but they grew increasingly dilapidated, often little more than a ruined foundation surrounded by dead earth. The knightly patrols have also diminished, the few we see seemingly to be increasingly agitated and moving at a brisk pace, not even taking notice of our presence. There's a strange stillness to the air, the plants lining the increasingly rough road becoming little more than dried out weeds.

That's when I see the human. Not a noble defender mounted on horseback who are clearly far too busy to stop and pet me, but a simple worker laying grey stone bricks onto a vertical wall. Just the sort of human which tends to offer both quests and nice head-rubs! I must have taken the others by surprise when I rushed forward, excited to see him, only to skid to a dead stop, my eyes wide as I get a clearer look at the 'corpse'.

It was indeed a human, and quite obviously a dead one. It was nearly stripped to bare bones, aside from a few discolored strips which could have just as easily been either clothing or dried flesh which hanged loosely from them. The eyes were empty, vacant sockets, the mouth frozen in a perpetual bony grin. Naturally, that would be an unsettling sight in itself, and I'd already experienced more than my share of human death back within the walled city. The real problematic detail, however, is the fact that it's still moving.

It moves in a slow and deliberate manner, taking one square, carved stone at a time from a nearby pile of bricks, only to set it on the open space atop the vertical wall. The bricks themselves are held in place by nothing but gravity and their own weight which, unfortunately, proves to be not quite enough. Upon setting the next one in place, half of the brick wall collapses, but undeterred, the skeleton resumes its efforts without hesitation, continuing to build from the bit of wall left standing. Based on the many cracked and scattered stones strewn about, it has likely been repeating this process for a very, very long time.

"I was hoping that we wouldn't have to pass through here." Carrie said as she looked the dead worker up and down.

"What's wrong with them?" I ask, my wide eyes still locked on the macabre spectacle, "What is this place?"

"The Fallen Fields, the Wasted Lands, the Corrupted Plains... it turns out that the area has a whole bunch of different names. As for what's wrong with them, well, that's pretty closely related." The crow replies, "Nobody knows exactly how or why, but some time ago this place was corrupted by a dark and terrible magic. Ever since then, anything that dies in the area just kind of... keeps going."

"That's awful..." I say, tensing a little as the upper layer of the stone wall along the road falls away once more, and the former human resumes their futile efforts to restore it.

"I don't know... it doesn't seem so bad to me." Carrie-Anne replies, looking closer. "They don't seem particularly unhappy. Plus, it's not as though being buried in the ground is all that fun. They get some sun and exercise, and continue doing what they loved. Sounds like a decent enough way to spend eternity, to me."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"I... guess." I answer back. I'm more than a little bit skeptical, but am not really equipped to challenge the reasoning of my new ally. I suspect that it's more that she's better skilled at debating than myself, rather than her being consistently right.

"Fascinating..." Vile says as she hops off of her Slave to run over to the body leg of the human. "I've heard of necromancy, and always wanted to get into it myself, but haven't had the opportunity to learn the proper spells. To think that an entire region could do this, automatically, without requiring consistent intervention from a spellcaster."

Slave quickly yanks the rat away before she could be crushed by a falling brick, but this does nothing to distract Vile from her fascination with the re-animated corpse.

"Well, if you're all finished gawking at the locals like a pack of country bumpkins, we should get moving." Carrie says. This feels a little hypocritical, as she seemed to be watching the bony figure as closely as anyone, but I don't say anything, "This place is extremely dangerous, and we should get out of this region as quickly as possible.

"What's so dangerous about it?" I ask. There are naturally no shortage of possibilities, but thus far the only entity we had encountered appeared to be quite harmless, and had absolutely no interest in us.

"Do I really need to spell it out?" Carrie-Anne sighs. I nod, thinking that it couldn't hurt. I'm even worse at spelling than I am at math, after all. "The creatures that died here, mostly humans continue doing what was important to them in life, without any real intelligence or sense of purpose. Need another clue? The vast, vast majority of the people who died in this place were not brick-layers."

I'm still just a tiny bit confused, but the answer comes to me before I have time to ask for further clarification and potentially embarrass myself. Sure, people can get sick, suffer from accidents and die in all sorts of different manners, but it's particularly dangerous and violent professions that will naturally result in a lot of fatalities. Soldiers, adventurers, or hunters. People who have spent much of their lives fighting, and now those final instincts will be all that they have left. I pick up the pace, leading the way as Vile looks back at the eternal laborer with a forlorn expression.

"We probably don't need to worry too much." Carrie-Anne said as we continued down the increasingly rough and overgrown road, "The dead soldiers of this place shouldn't pay any attention to us, or see us as worthwhile opponents. They don't tend to attack animals."

We reach the top of a small hill, the road sloping downwards rather severely, and thus the view ahead catches us by surprise. Namely the dozen armored men, or former men, to be more accurate. Even calling them armored was something of an overstatement, as little more than scraps remained upon them. Some held spears, others had their bony fingers squeezed into fists, their armaments long since lost, but their owners not realizing it. More than anything, I notice their non-eyes, simply empty, vacant sockets which are clearly long since incapable of seeing anything, yet still inexplicably are locked upon us.

I really need to warn Carrie-Anne about tempting fate like that.

---

Vile: "Ah, re-animated skeletons! Classic adventurer fodder!"

Squire: "I don't know... I don't feel right about fighting humans, even former-humans."

Carrie: "They've already been fought and killed before. Destroying them isn't even particularly violent. It's closer to vandalism than assault."

Squire: "Vandalism is wrong, though!"

Vile: "Oh really, Miss 'Door Destroyer'?"

Squire: "That's completely different and you know it!"