“Hurry your arses! The enemy could make their move any moment!” Haraldur, a Blessed of the Nightscale yells in front of the large gate. Trolls and ogres with painted white skin rush there, holding large beams over their shoulders. They swiftly lodge one end into the ground while slowly leaning it over the wooden gate’s walls.
The darkened earth swirls around the ends peeking out from the ground, hardening into stone within a moment, while the Dhau-Íssz mages’ chanting reverberates in the air. “You, rush with them to the armoury, carry all you can.” Haraldur points his draconic black left arm at a young, pale orc Dhau-Íssz warrior clad in their glinting scaled armour with a helmet vaguely fashioned after their Draconic God's head.
The young orc yells to his comrades, and they disappear between the structures of hardened rock conjured from the ground. Their heavy footsteps echo through between the jagged, murky walls. “Hmmm. What is it Grog?” The dark elf clad in bone and black robes turns around as she notices her friend stop in his tracks for a moment. “I’m not sure. For a moment, my spine shivered as if someone watched us from… there!” He turns around while looking up at the corner of the left roof.
“Do not be an idiot. No one can get through the walls thanks to the Nightscale’s blessing.” The wrinkled, pale high elf adds, clad in the same scaled armour. “Hurry on, we may not have much time.” After a bit of hesitation, Grog starts moving. Then his sight completely black, a cold feeling assaulting his skin as something fluid, yet serrated and hard slips into his armour. The feeling of the ground becomes absent as he tries to scream, his voice never reaching beyond the shimmering mass covering more than half of his body.
The others quickly turn back and walk back warily with the dark elf. Then as she turns around, she too suffers the same fate, the dark mass wrapping around her body before leaping high in the air. The remaining four unsheathe their weapons while keeping their eyes high. One of them hears a scraping sound from the left before a dark fluid blade imaples his through his head before he is pulled into the shadows, the clanking of his armor alerting the others.
They all spin around while pointing their weapons in front, slight signs of fear appearing on their visages. Then the last two including the high elf lose their heads in a blink of an eye, only noticing the blade of fluid, liquid metal tearing across the wide space when it reaches their necks. Their lifeless bodies are dragged through the walls, as if their cadavers turned into phantoms, dragged through without damage to either the body or the wall itself.
**
“The next group should be here by now.” The elderly orc Dhau-Íssz notes aggravated while turning back to his aide. The heavy crate carried out by the muscular man no older than thirty lands with a heavy thud while the forged weapons clash inside. “Instead of waiting for them, help carry the rest out.” He adds while he himself feels irritated. “Idiot, I rather not exert my power needlessly before the battle.” The orc shouts at him while forming a rock in his palm, throwing it at him to lessen his frustration a little.
“Yet you still do that shit, old fart.” The man lifts his head back before forcefully using his forehead to burst the piece of conjured stone to dozens of pieces before it disintegrates into earthly mana.
“What in the Abyss!” As he steps in, the Man pinches his crude, thick nose as the putrid smell of death hits his nostrils. He unsheathed his axe while slowly walking into the shadows that thickened since he stepped out with the crate. Then he stops when a splash echoed between the stacks of crates, crimson fluid sticking to the bottom of his boots. “Shit.” He curses under his breath as silent as he can as his sense of danger screams at his very being, making him overtly thrilled.
Then, as his eyes get used to the dimness in front, his axe plunges at the silhouette standing carelessly in front of him. For a mere moment, he calms down, even feeling a bit saddened that the enemy gave away their position so foolishly. But then, as he tries to dislodge it, his mind registers that the figure hasn’t slumped to the ground yet like corpses normally do.
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The figure gains grim features, hollow eyes staring emptiness back at him, a wide grin with outlines of teeth with the appearance of both fluid and metal dark as the starless night that consumes the day on occasion. His hand slips off the axe’s handle as it gets quickly consumed by the creature. As it moves, ripples form on its body, just like when rain drops hit the clean surface of a lake.
A fear freezes his body in place while the creature raises its hand while it starts spiralling until it takes the shape of a long blade that swiftly pierces through his armour and flesh. He coughs up blood, tainting his dense brown beard, while a coldness spreads around his soul. His eyes dry up, dusting away by a slight movement of the air, leaving behind a gaping desolation while darkness fills his body, exposing his unseen now corrupted soul.
“What the hell takes you so..” The orc rushes in, his veins popping out from his temples. Before he could finish, though, the creature's hand shifted into a blade attached to chains plunges into his skull. His face gets partially destroyed in the centre, leaving a wide vertical hole through which one can see through.
He too swiftly joins the undead of the Nameless silently waiting inside the building, making his way to the shadows with slow steps, striving to make as little noise as possible. The creature whose body is made of Feigril slowly breaks down into a puddle that swiftly departures through the door, blending in with the ground.
**
“They should be back by now.” Haraldur notes to himself while turning his back to the gate, staring in the direction Grog and his group disappeared. He walks back and forth while his right hand unconsciously grips his sword's handle. A part of him feels something isn’t right in their outpost, besides the chanting of the mages and the high ranking warriors yelling commands to their subordinates, an eerie silence occupies the rest of their fortress.
“We shouldn’t have let the elves do the carrying.” One of his subordinates, a hulking orc towering even over him, approaches while stating his discontent with the poor physical performance of the elven kind. “They have their magics to rely on.” Haraldur says not counting in the aspect straining the body, leading to the Devouring all sane mages dread when it comes to spellcasting.
“That would be true, but that means they expedite faster than we could reduce the enemy numbers to a favourable amount.” The orc points it out to him, yet it just goes in one ear, and out the other.
While Haraldur is a Blessed of the Nightscale, it is a position that is somewhat randomly given out. Sometimes those receive it who led his servants into many great victorious battles, at other times he just gives it out to those who had proven themselves to be powerful, even if they failed to secure victories in his name.
Haraldur is one such a warrior who started out as an adventurer in the land of the North. He was both famous and infamous. His fame came from defeating many terrifying beasts prowling the fallen kingdom, destroying dozens of bandit groups lurking in the forest, robbing noble entourages and merchant caravans. His infamy comes from the fact of his little regard for mages. Through his decades of adventuring, his group had at least twenty or so sorcerers, mages or wizards that each met their doom when they got devoured by the aspects. In a few cases it happened when the group faced almost certain death at the claws of a great beast or when outnumbered and overwhelmed by bandits.
By the time the Nightscale started his rampage, his then group decided to part ways with him, which led to him to a path of villainy when most of his patrons died. He formed his own bandit group that was put down by the Horde not long after their arrival. He became a slave at the time, but he never gave up, fought for the entertainment of the Dhau-Íssz leaders in their camps in the overworld, which then led to the point of him joining the ‘clan’. Then after securing a few victories, proving himself to the Nightscale he received his blessing, although many in the clan were dubious about the choice somewhat.
Many of their mages died during the sieges on dark elven outposts in the Upper Stratum, thanks to Haraldur disregarding the Devouring. The Orc was one of the few who had mixed feeling about Haraldur. On one hand he enjoyed fighting on his side, but on the other he was aware of the little tactical awareness he possessed.
“Vharbukh, take a few men and check out what takes them so long.” Haraldur after much contemplation turns to his aide and orders him. “I will do so.” For a moment, hesitation appears on the orc’s face, but in the end complies. An eerie coldness slithers through his whole being as he takes off with two of his men, a part of him already aware that his earlier remark was probably wrong.
Haraldur watches them disappear in a turn before turning back to the gates, unaware of the dark silhouette watching him from one of the rooftops before it disappears…