Shades of emerald, crimson and rosy grew dimmer as they slowly reached the threshold of the eastern parcel, where even the foliage lost color, the trees appeared ghastlier with their gaunt hands reaching to warn the passersby. Dead twigs rested in the blanketing, withered leaves whilst the wind beckoned the indomitably marching group in the opposing direction they came from.
Upon stepping through the threshold, Isocrates was assaulted by a cold sensation, he felt completely wary and thought back onto the figure he saw the day before in the early hours of the morning. Now he believed the opposite, that it was not the fabrication of his waking mind, but the nekros Albron talked about, one Augermil himself faced on the ancient battlefields of now long dead worlds, one of the eldest nekros.
Hearing those words, their resolve faltered a little, though Albron assured them that the Nekros they shall face is shadow of itself thank to partially Augermil’s strike upon its accursed form, curses placed upon him by Terrianis and the Amber Lord, and even the primordial beings of dusk and finality whom he rebelled against not long after the defeat of the Grim Sovereign.
Sparks of lightning surrounded his arms as he treaded with Themmryd behind him, Ephaias before, the foliage of the high rising bushes scraping their armor. A heavy, cold air lingered, chilled his nostrils and throat while his body sweated from the small noises of the forest settled by the denizens of twilight. In the corners of his eyes, Isocrates noticed the small insects hanging on the edges of the branches, emanating a sinister dim mist of black and purple.
The further they treaded into the forest, heading straight towards the ruins home to the ancient nekros, the undead insects stirred and moved from branch, always just a little away from them. “What is it?” Noticing the faint sparks, his inquisitive, unnerved gaze Themmtryd asked. “I think it is aware of our presence.” He said in a low voice facing at the back of Ephaias towering over with only a head’s length.
“And how would you know that?” Skopas inquired with an inauspicious manner whilst his hand curled over the think hilt of his blade passed down to him from his father. “Don’t you all feel it in the air?” Ignoring his manner, Isocrates stated taking deep breaths to calm his alarmed senses as his eyes focused now on the rustling, withered foliage, his muscles prepared to direct the way of spells at the threshold of manifestation.
“Well the air is definitely unpleasant. But that could be just the taint of the night.” Themmtryd spoke up as she occasionally stared into the distance, hoping for an undead to charge at them out of nowhere. Yet each time she dejected at seeing nothing more than the somber branches and dying leaves shrouding the bones of the unfortunate wolves who walked into their certain doom out of hunger.
“Aeson is right. Undead insects fly and settle on these branches, following us since we stepped into.” Ephaias came to his aid feeling the cold gaze stretching across space. A sensation that sent the slithering grasp of chill across his spine and put him on alarm as the mana occupying his soul and body flowed effervescently like water in a rivulet. Waiting for the hand, for the basket to hoist it out from its natural place and spray it out from the confines.
“Those are just insects waiting for their meal to stop and be vulnerable.” Skopas retorted calmly as they reached a crossing, a small clearing in the pathless road of the parcel. “They are leaking with nekrotic matter.” Isocrates added as the motion of his feet came to a halt and Themmtryd focused on her surrounding bumped into him.
“It definitely waits though for us to be vulnerable. A good sign I believe.” Ephaias said with a confident look as he surveyed the area, then pulled back his cloak and let the cold wind breeze through his completely sheared down head. His head twitched then turned towards the south east and as he turned back facing Skopas, the group renewed their marching like the undead insects who hopped from one branch to another.
Halfway through, they faltered suddenly when Skopas raised his fist. Leaves cracked impetuously in a pernicious manner; the trees moaned in agony as the malodorous wind blew past them and the rotting inhabitants of the parcel marching towards the group. The sparks around his arm grew sporadic as he watched trembling from fear the disturbed adventurers and fellow legionariir moving with awkward steps.
All their eyes carved out from the holes, in their place a wicked, vicious darkness lingered with a dim violet light lit in their center. With their loss, their expressionless gaze met the groups whose form shimmered in a dawn amber and golden glow as Ephaias struck his palms together. Their arms revealed and hidden by torn vambraces, tunic’s sleeves reached for their rusty weapons and their strange pace quickened as they neared. Distorted cries and shrieks followed as the animalistic dead charged at them, and Themmtryd finally felt satisfied, though still a bit dejected as in her molten eyes, the three undead seemed no more a challenge than the cultists themselves.
“This should be quick. Take the furthers rough hand.” Skopas rushed after Themmtryd with his long, gilded blade unsheathed, shield held before him as it broke through one tree, sending a forcing a few of the undead insects into a panicked fly. Frowning, Isocrates complied and focused on the tall and gaunt orkh adventurer. Above the forest, where Albron flew on his mighty and graceful dragon, clouds flocked over the parcel and the menacing cold wind grew intense.
Sparks hopped their ceremonial dance around his arms, his veins glowed through the layers of arkhaine velvet and living armor bending like tender sinew before stretching before him as he pointed his palms at the undead orkh adventurer. At once, lightning slithered down from the sky, traversing quick as focused serpent at its prey, and stroke right through the dented head where skin decayed away revealing the thick cracked skull. Though in the short span before the thunder’s blue and violet tip broke through a third crimson shade of the awakening Illius appeared in the mingling colors as he woven the primordial matter of Dawn, Iuboron into the spell.
The charred remains hit the floor in tandem with the other two sliced by sword, shattered by a large, ornated hammer swung with dwarven inelegance. “Ough, that smell.” Its large angular head fell onto the ground, shattering the cadaver further as Themmtryd reached to pinch her nose as the odor of death quickly spread and strengthened from both theirs and the charred remains a few steps away.
“At least they went down quick. I wonder why attack us now?” Ephaias murmured under his breath as he focused his mind away from the awful stench. “I believe it was more a chance than intent.” Isocrates theorized although was no expert on nekromancy and the risen or raised dead. “I believe so too. We were just unfortunate enough to head into them making their rounds.” Skopas added as they began their march anew instead of collecting pieces from the undead.
Their steps quickened, their presence faded as Ephaias wreathed them in spells dampening the scent of soul, stiffened the steps on the fallen foliage, bargained with the wind to not carry the echoes of their voice, of their whispers as they marched in the shadows of the parcel ruled by Dusk. Yet even feeling all these fading into oblivion as they made their way towards the ruins, slowly appearing over the decaying trees Isocrates’s heart beat with an increased pace, his body in a clammy shivering from the cold sweat of his unexplainable fear towards the undead, the unnaturalistic disposition of them as their hollow gazes still locked onto their marching forms erased by complex spells.
Deep down he felt another’s gaze within theirs, one not fooled by the spells, aware and wishing for their unimpeded way by its enslaved servants whose minds screamed for freedom, for the soothing embrace of death and the lands that awaited beyond, where they minded not whether their eternal dream was blissful or nightmares. Isocrates feared that they too shall be forced into this state, taken from the cycle metered onto them by powers predating the Queen and King of those exhausted by life. And the prospect of never seeing her terrified him the most, to not hear her soft, melodious voice calling his true name, the flowery and fruity scent that ever followed the Luelia even after an arduous day where her fair, delicate form was draped in the saccharine sweat he oh so wanted to taste.
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An eternal existence bereft of these would be a sentence most outlandish, most distressing to Isocrates whose fear born of bereft his obsession slowly shifted into a conviction to reach beyond his best, and slay the ancient beast stalking these lands, amassing dead for reasons unknown but decipherable as Albron told little, yet somewhat enough of the history of the beast, sculpted by the gaunt, divine hands of the Grim Sovereign to be a beast of war, a war that would bring an end to all existence. A war that never ended for this scion of the lost sovereign, punished with banishment into the realms unknown from what little Isocrates knew of these legends since his enlistment into the legion.
“Finally!” Themmtryd’s exclamation brought him out from these thoughts and at once, he found himself facing the decrepit obelisks reaching upwards matching in size and curvature of the great Charybdises sleeping in the darkest depths of the Ocean, waiting for their prey to approach, to swallow them into their maws hungering for armadas. Darkened stones stacked and welted by maghia rose slanted with a sharpened tip of a scorpion, roots and branches twisted themselves onto the cold silhouette while between the seven, hewn steps led to a circle fashioned in the disk-like appearance of the distant Illius, Lunarius.
Stone seating rose around, each at lower elevation as it went further and further towards the disk center. Fading nature slithered onto it, skulls of decapitated heads sang ancient melodies glorifying the first silver light of the Lunarius showering a now nameless world. As Isocrates focused his ears onto the strange, warped lyrics he noticed a breakage at the end of each verse, a breakage not of sudden silence but as if the word or name they wished to utter existed no more.
Their dim violet, pointed eyes followed the Isocrates, and the others slowly moving down the stretched, flattened stairs with cracks and stone humming with their steps, yet whilst he took his gaze from the center, the others focused on the tall figure with his back turned on them. A back cloaked by regal attire darker than the night with trims brimming ethereally like the lunarius.
At its center, the strange, otherworldly textile torn by an ancient blade wreathed in the flames of the first life revealing a corpse like flesh frozen in the middle of rotting, yet it still possessed a regal air, a divine texture amidst the long wound which broke the curvature of the thick, bony halo. As they reached within a few steps, Skopas prepared his blade and lifted it into a striking position, in his mind aimed deepen the wound left way before their time by the hands of Augermil.
His blade stroke true, yet could not reach its intended destination as the figure grew in size, hulking over the young patricios with his pallid, bulky hand clutching the blade, his divinely decayed epidermis halting the sharp edges in their ravenous dig. The softly triangular face as horrid as the back, sculpted with sunken eyes of the final stage of wasting away, empty holes in the center of the dark craters lacking in the same light as the undead’s. A face devoid of nose except for three branching slits, a wide mouth beset with gray fangs and fetid muscles dripping with a black acidic ichor marring the stone beneath their feet as the creature smiled wickedly at the now terrified Skopas.
“New, volunteering children for your flock my Father!” Came the deep, sepulchral voice carrying the malodorous breath of death, seeping into the bones and hastening the beating heart towards its end as it lifted Skopas high up in the air, preparing its other hand wreathed in cold energies hungering for life. “Or they are lost, idiotic blind to their fate You metered out for your new design?” It said calmly upon receiving the thunder of Isocrates, evaded the hammer of Themmtryd with the elegance of graves as it form turned translucent, glided like specters and wraits bound to their resting places.
Then its long fingers ending in claws of obsidian curled onto his softly chiseled chin as if pondering, the two pointed and flattened horns of crescent engraved with runes oozing with ancient, cold energies of dusk, carving by the fangs of the First Night himself as Ephaias and Isocrates noted astral veins of myriad shades grew in the whites of their eyes. “It matters not. They shall serve in your reborn legions once more when the Hour of Night hangs above the world once more.”
“Seems this one’s pretty crazy.” Themmtryd said as she lurched her head back besides the collapsed, tremulous Skopas whose blades’ clattering echoed through the ancient area. “Calm.” Ephaias whispered as he placed his palm onto his head and sapped the motes of terror out from his mind, reforming them into flames he splattered before them as the nekros slowly approached them with its long ethereal, braided beard dangled before its chest of protruding ribcages.
As he froze behind them, Isocrates suddenly turned back upon hearing the soft crackling of vines and roots slithering surreptitiously, barely audible thanks to the endless singing of the skulls. “Watch your feet.” He yelled at them as streaks of lightning danced around his arms before rushing towards the vines, forcing them back into their natural, motionless state smoldering and blackened.
When he turned back, he watched as the flames separating them from it vanquished, blackened and purple for a moment as it walked straight through with a listless expression. “Do not be afraid my children. The lies of the usurpers shall no longer taint your minds. Your true elevation to eternity is at hand.” With a sweep of his arms, a wave of unease propelled Isocrates to force a barrier around themselves, as the trees rustles then shrieked with the deathly wind chugging life out from them as it swept through. Even the whitened skulls halted in their singings as their reduced forms crumbled into dust, carried away towards the skies as the wind began to circle into a whirlpool.
Without the need for words, all four knew they had a singular chance for victory, a single strike to take down the shackled, wounded nekros carved by true evil. Even Skopas looked obligingly at Isocrates as he got back onto his feet calmed and clear of fear. “Themmtryd strike either at its feet or head, if possible, Ephaias endow me with the protections of dawn, Isocrates I beseech you for the blessed swiftness of thunder and lightning.” Even his deep voice once full of conviction felt meek like a child’s seeking for their parent’s aid.
Though he held no love for the man, Isocrates nodded and cleared his mind from his own fears that ailed him in this accursed place. His astral hand reached and welted onto Skopas’s firm back, pouring mana twisted, molded into inscriptions lacking in the desire, will of wounding, marring and maiming, brimmed with the velocity of nature’s wrath.
Similarly he reached out to Themmtryd gifting her the same qualities of thunder and lightning whilst also layering inscriptions of lessening her weight. Slowly the barrier eroded around them as the two brimmed with the gifts of the two magusos, and stepped out without fear, their shouts laced with thrill as their weapons rose towards the creation of Dusk and Finality, devoid of fear, brimming with its own maddened conviction of triumph as it held out its long, hulking yet slender arms welcoming the two as one stroke its head, the other thrusted its glinting blade towards the swirling blackness at the center of its hollow abdomen.
Whilst the two charged at their target, Isocrates and Ephaias slowly tumbled, fell onto their knees focusing their will onto the creation of small wards halting the rotting of their own flesh, the decay of their armor and garments losing their luster with each passing moment. Their hope faded for a moment as Themmtryd’s hammer simply passed through the head turned translucent, though it resurfaced soon as she forced it back with the near the same strength forced into it and the creature recoiled devoid of shrieks as tumbled back.
Skopas’s blade moved inwards the darkness, halting as if it stuck in stone, then he yelled as he felt the scorching pain of dawn as iuboron matter revealed itself spiraling around the wide, angular blade clashing with the blackness. Though to their dismay, roots rose from the cracked stone and lunged towards Skopas. Isocrates noticing them first, forced the same spell upon himself, and appeared besides him as he shielded his comrade from the lash laced with death.
In that moment, he smothered his cry as his arm blackened in the seconds of a moment and fell in tandem with the bones, they all embraced in the assembling cradle of the womb. A choice which brought enough time for Themmtryd to notice the wounded beasts hands moving, her hammer parrying them whilst Skopas pushed through the sturdy darkness until it penetrated the core of Scion of Lunarias whose howl towards the dim skies echoed as its tainted life slipped from its accursed form.
Isocrates fell, bleeding, sweating as nausea took him suddenly, and he starred into the vacant eyes occupied by emptiness, for a moment he witnessed a glint of azure in them, before blackness swallowed his world.