“Kill them! Consume Them!” The cacophony of their voices rang in his head, one deep and guttural that sounded like his mouth was filled with food, speaking while eating. A soothing feminine voice with melancholic undertones, carrying the weight of a thousand broken hearts, and the last a fiery inferno, stoking the flames of bloodshed, war. All three beckoned him while his hands were covered in the blood of his family, his mouth carried their sweet taste while his heart ached from a feeling of abandonment.
Moments ago, he was standing outside the lair of the Triumvirate, Acniss and her entourage surrounding him, showering him with praise. They commended him for the sacrifice he was about to make, they applauded him for finally reaching the rank of Arch-Magus, just like his parents before he brutally massacred them.
The images of her mother being torn apart by aspectless magic, her bloodcurdling screams started to reenter his mind, the excitement he felt when he tears her head off. The overwhelming joy and sorrow he felt when his father’s body got consumed by the hungering flames of his, leaving behind a roasted corpse as if his aim was to cook him.
The arousal he felt while pinning her sisters to the wall, gnawing their flesh while they remained paralyzed, screaming for mercy while they blood mingle with the hardened walls of the crypt that was now serving as their home. The pleading of his brothers before the ice completely encased them, before spikes tore into their flesh, splitting them into bloody pieces displayed eternally in ice.
The maddened screaming, shouting of the servants as their minds were altered, turning against each other in a bloody battle of survival, using whatever means they could to fight. Some resolved to punching their opposition to a bloody pulp on the ground, others used cutlery as makeshift weapons, gouging eyes with spoon, slitting throats slowly with blunt knives, stabbing with forks until their sharpness faded on the exposed, scraped bones.
“Their sacrifice won’t be in vain.” Her cold hands reached out to the fragmented Griggorn, like a gentle breeze that cools down the searing heat of a blazing fire. Her lips were a sugary delight, the kiss she gave him was like sipping honey from a flower, a flower that gradually revealed its vile nature, turning the honey to poison.
“Do you not love me?” She asked, her face contorting losing its darkness to be replaced by the pale devil’s face. Tears of dark ichor flowing from her wicked eyes while slimy tongues start wrap around his body, licking, tasting his soul burning with the hatred of war.
“Will you abandon us like them?” She grabs his face and pulls it off, while the tongues wrap around his throat, suffocating him slowly while the disgusting sludge flows into his mouth, tainting the sweet kiss even further into a vomit inducing flavor of rotten meat.
Then the devil Eurydice disappears, revealing the room his parents’ cadavers laid empty, except for the shriveled soul of his former master. His once slender body that he honed physically, believing that a mage should not just rely on their magical prowess, now a withered twig, blood dripping from his eyes as he can no longer produce tears while also chewing on his fingers as rage consumes him from the inside.
Just as Eurydice reappears with her head split open like a dark carnivorous flower with hundreds of teeth arrayed perfectly with sharp ends dripping with her dark saliva, Griggorn wakes up from his forced sleep while panting, sweating for this first time in a hundred year. He checks quickly for any mana residue, but comes up empty handed and decides to just wait until the march begins once more. They are only a few hours away from the border city of Adiriniech.
**
“I brought some food.” Erori enters with a bowl of steaming meat soup with a dark broth and the fleshy bark of one of the trees native to the undermountain. Griggorn finishes putting on his robes, something he is getting used to after not relying on the undead anymore.
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“Thank you, just place it on the ground.” He says while being fixated on his reflection in the magically made mirror. He softly touches his face, stretching his eyes to make sure he still has them then when he finishes, he sighs and sits down in front of Erori while levitating the bowl into his hands.
“Everything’s in order?” He asks with a sour face as he tasted the over spiced soup, but continues eating anyway. The past few nights, similar nightmares invaded his dreams, something that seemed not a coincidence, even though there were no residual mana left behind none of the time he woke up from them. Which drove him crazy in a sense. If it was magic, he could find a solution to it easily, but if it was something else, maybe fate telling him he nears the end of the road, he found that terrifying. He had no intention to die, while his soul was shackled to four different entities, even though in his case the Nightscale would probably win in that contest. Who knows what he would do to him if he failed.
“Yes, half the camp is already in formation waiting for your command.” She answers while Griggorn elegantly packs his face with the soup, masking his disgust of it with a meticulous face he constantly wipes.
“Any undead spotted nearby?” He then asks after the past four days no sign of any undead try getting closer to even just scout them. There were a few dark elven scouts, but those quickly got away, thanks Griggorn ordering to leave them be. He knows her well, knows that for now they are watching and waiting to side with the victor.
Then vile presences assault his senses, the wards placed around the camp transmitting distant howls into the interior of his tent, accompanied by the faint wind sent by the shockwave. The two without saying a word head out from their tent and notice the shadows harden under their feet. Griggorn looks up to the ceiling that is slowly hidden by dark clouds, a rare if not impossible occurrence deep under the mountain.
As he looks for the source of the gathering storm above, he spots the demonic construct above a nearby hill, just as a group of Dhau-Íssz archers notice it too. Its large body with ashen dark skin ends on the bottom with four scythe like legs with familiar looking plates grafted onto them. The same plates that also adorn its body, while its bull like abyssal head with four horns sprouting from the sides of its head, each emitting a dark mist that warps the surrounding scenery behind its head.
His massive arms held up in the air, squeezing raging storm between the palms signaling to Griggorn that he is watching the source of the storm. He quickly sends numerous flaming spheres at the demonic minotaur construct aiming to destroy it in one go before it finishes the spell. Small ape like undead, raised goblins rush under its leg towards the edge of the jagged hill and leap into the air, using their bodies to protect the construct from the combination of enchanted arrows and the raging spheres of flames heading towards it. The explosion sends their bloody chunks in all direction, spreading a miasma that suffocates the nearby warriors of the Dhau-Íssz, the perished slowly get up and lunge at their former clans-kin while the construct finishes the spell with a gleeful smile.
“Quickly, wards!” He yells to Erori as he extends his mind across their camp and the formation that is now engaging with strange creatures using his invention, Stahlaar, as their second skin. The two manage erecting wards where they feel the intention of the spell striking, blue circles with myriad sized runes circling in them appear all over between the black clouds and the camp. Thanks to them being unequally strengthened, the smaller dark clouds forming above the siege supplies break through the wards formed by the two after ten consecutive strikes, lighting the explosive dust in the barrels.
Less dark clouds appear in the distance following the thunderous roaring of the explosion, the blood curdling screams as the burning Dhau-Íssz members including a few trolls and ogres run around like headless chickens before falling over like puppets whose strings have been cut. The flames consuming their carcasses slowly gain a darker hue as they slowly start rising from the ground.
“I should’ve burned that tome.” Griggorn murmurs while grinding his teeth in a mild frustration. Thankfully, there is still some order in the camo, the various high ranking Dhau-Íssz ordering their troops to stay calm and directing the already armed warriors to engage with the undead amongst the camp. Just as they reach the undead formerly their clans-kin, even more start growing out from the ground like plants grown by a wizard well versed in time magic.
“Follow me, let’s take care of the undead first in the camp.” He turns to Erori, who sends two fireballs at ghouls, spewing darkness as they scream and rush at her. The two head toward the centre where the number of the Nameless’s undead rapidly grows, while He watches from the distance above a high hill formed like a fang of a full-grown dragon with the Arnyak patiently waiting for its command, as the battle begins….