“You blasphemous traitors! Release us this instance!” an old black man hollowed, rattling the jail bars. Men around him groaned in pain. They were a badly beaten group, all squished against the cold stone. Only a day had passed since their capture and the rot has already made its home in this dungeon. The lucky ones seated themselves in the far left corner of the jail, away from the unlucky ones, who now lay stacked and unmoving in the bottom corner of the jail.

“Just shut up already, it’s been ten fucking hours!” another old man called out from the crowd. “Traitor this traitor that, the Justicia will execute you and Justucai will damn you. It’s us that are in locked here, not them, you senile fool!”

The old man whipped his face around, revealing a set of two mismatched eyes, one dead white and the other brown. Each eye looked in different directions, but neither looked in the direction of the man it was addressing “You weak spined, eel feces fucker! Have you no honor? No faith? No conviction? They have brought upon us the wrath of a hundred Pnévmas! Bringing retribution upon their sinful souls will deliver us from The Great One’s retribution!”

“And what’s thrusting your shriveled cat penis against iron bars going to do? Ha?” An old soul called out from within the throng of bodies.

“More than sitting flat on your own shit going to do, you bald dicked, white shrimp!”

“T-that wasn’t me! I wa-”

“Fuck off, they could smell your fouled pants from the next cell”

“No they ca-”

“Quiet down there!” A guard yelled, a distance away, “One more disturbance and you crippled fools will be skipping lunch!”

The Old Man snapped his shriveled body around, opening his mouth with hostile venom. Before the first word was uttered, however, men all around threw their limbs at him, bringing him down and covering his vile mouth. Only a few muffled curses escaped his lips.

After a rustle, the prisoners heard the far gates closing, sounding the guard's exist.

The Old Man escaped the mass angry fingers that held him, indulging everyone around him about the wretched corruptness and vile nature of human beings, and how they had brought this upon themselves. He was also kind enough to remind them of their impending doom and endless horrors of the afterlife, which they had been sentenced too upon surrendering their souls to the wicked ones.

An hour later, the rebels were spared the rest of the lecture by the gate's screeching against the stone ground. A horde of iron boots echoed in the long halls of the dingy dungeon, their stormy entrance and hard spears awakening any slumbering prisoner.

Lucious peeked out from the cluster of bodies, catching sight of The High Guard. Giant soldiers with even more enormous halberds. The shortest of them towered at six foot five. Each wore a full set of heavy steel armor, colored blue and white, with the exception of the Captain, whose fancy white was a torch by itself.

Someone had a fetish.

For the twenty hundredth time, Lucious cursed his wicked luck. How he got round up in the capture of the rebellion forces, he had no idea. One moment he was forging for food, the next he was caught him in a chaotic mess of metal and limb. Lucious began wondering if someone had it in for him, someone that possibly deserved a dagger in the arse. He promptly dismissed that idea as too foolish--it reeked too much of narcissism. He was too insignficant to be of any matter.

“Listen up you scum! The Profectus Empire has decided to grant mercy upon your sad souls! Instead of executing you useless lot for your crimes against the Empire, you will instead serve in its battle against the dark forces!”

Faces lit up all around, dead men flinching in each corner of the block prison. The smartest of them had already submitted to the grim reality of their nearing judgment, yet the life in their bodies returned. One of the men in the stack of corpses even woke up.

"Of course, we will not force this upon you. I will personally escort any man wishing to forsake this divine opportunity," The Captain of the High Gaurd said, snapping the butt of his spear against the ground.

The ground cracked. The meaning of it was not lost upon the prisoners. Not even the babbling old rat opened his mouth. Only a special few had the humor left to nudge him.

It did not take long the Guards to round up everyone in long chains. No one was foolish, or brave enough, to wish leave from this mission.

Half a thousand entered the gutters, and only half of those left. The tough few were the ones the army wanted, nevertheless. No case in feeding and supplying mouths that were gonna drop dead regardless.

They marched straight out of the prison block, and towards the North exit. Blood and the smell of burning flesh was everywhere. The prisoners and the High Gaurd encountered many mounds of corpses. It was where the dead were gathered to be burned--a wise precaution by the Empress against the raising undead.

The bodies were then set a flame, sometimes through magical concoctions, and others through more rudimentary tools, such as oil and a spark.

The greatest pyre were those in the Third District, where the human population was the densest. The mound became a hill, and the whipping flames threatened to catch onto houses.

The screams of the living accompanied the corpses. Not out of remorse, for that had perished days ago, but of the men and women who had the poor luck of being accused of corruption for one senseless reason or the other. They too were tossed in the pyre. Lucious watched the sinful smoke creep skyward and feed the dark heavens. It was an ugly gray, full of dark clouds and nauseous wails. Wicked things flew above the clouds. A glimpse sent horror into each man's soul.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was the beginning of a Dark Age.

Lucious did not mind this one bit. Let the entire world be swallowed by black flames, for all he cared. Let them be slaughtered like cattle, let them be skinned like sheep. Let them be devoured like pigs and enslaved like dogs. Gods know they deserve each moment of it. Let this be the end of civilization, the extinction of man. The Final Solution. Again and again, again and again, each pyre will draw the painting of humanity's countless crimes. Lucious will take joy in it. It will not be his revenge, for he has not partaken in the honor, but he will savior it like sweet honey.

Haggard prisoners joined arms with other haggard prisoners from other parts of the city. There was Thirty High Guards to each couple hundred, yet all knew that no amount of number could overwhelm The High Guard. How foolish and tinny they all seem in comparison to the Empire's deadliest machines.

Accompanying the rear of a three thousand tall army, the rebel force numbered a thousand.

A week had passed since the dead had risen in The Profectus Empire, where horrors became deadlier horrors, yet even in that span of time the Empire had cleansed its cities of the undead, had brought down a coup, brokered peace on its eastern front, and had recalled the majority of its forces back into the capital's surrounding lands.

The spear to the empire, however, as the rumors went, was the loss of Dijhat. The city had connected the empires supply routes as well as it’s trade routes, in addition to the manufacturing of Ethium crystals, and now that it was lost, the Profectus Empire would lose a vital tactical advantage. No more explosive crystals to decimate a courted army, no more mines to assist in bloodthirsty ambushes.

Unless, of course, the Council of Seven and the King decided to launch a suicidal attack on its impenetrable walls, use half the Empire’s remaining storage of crystal explosives, munitions, and sacrifice a goat and a half for a tint of success. The fastest of its sieges lasted in years, others faster in case of political exploits and inside fighting--something wise men would doubt would occur.

How do you debate the undead?

In each case, the defenders died of starvation and disease, and catapulting sick cows and corpses was much more efficient than rocks and arrows.

How would that even work for the undead? Throwing corpses and sick cows against the undead? That would be a funny sight, but a sight said wise men would not want to be present for.

Lucious wanted to be part of said men.

The Second Regiment marched for days in the cold. It wasn’t much of an issue for Lucious, with his highly specialized skills in Endurance, but it was much more so for the rest of the scrabble following the heel of the Regiment. Low temperatures, harsh winds, and a lack of equipment wared down the group. The Regiment, who were mostly trained for this, marched on for days, with little to no sleep and minimum food.

Luscious listened in here and there, attempting to get an understanding of the world, yet it all amounted to a worthless jumble of contradicting nonsense. By the fourth day, their commanding officer gathered them in one of their scarce rest periods. “We are now a couple days march from the Third Regiment’s encampment. As many of you already know, the infestation by the undead had spread far and wide, gyrating our peaceful Empire into a gruesome mess of conflict and war,” their officer announced, his face turning into a scorn “one of these conflicts being a petty rebel raising.”

Lucious shifted, his left knee throbbing. The damp dirt sunk below his weight.

If that was peace to them, then what was war?

“It is time, however, for you to repent for your crimes against the state. You are to hereby march to the front of the Regiment. You will participate in many battles in order to unite the Third Regiment, who now stands pressed under the hordes of undead. The Regiment had survived a week under the onslaught of the hordes. I’m sure those of you who possess an inkling of intelligence have realized by now, that whatever the Third Regiment can last a week in direct conflict with is not a force which can handle the might of the Second Regiment, much less both at the same time. Some of you will perish, but most of you will survive. Those who survive the worse of the fighting not only will they be cleansed for their crimes, but also rewarded with 10 Rubies each, and offered a position in the army.”

The men's eyes returned to life. They thought they were marching to Dijhat, The Impenetrable City of The Century, but it turns out that they would only have to fight in skirmishes against the undead in the fields and the forests. One of the men next to Lucious, a bald, heavily built middle-aged man with a hunch to his back, chuckled under his breath “What a hefty reward. It doesn’t sound like they expect much of us to get out."

"They'll probably use us as an experimental force?"

"Send us on a suicide mission? Use us to stiffen a charge?"

"Oh, the possibilities make me jiggle!"

For the exception of the last guy, Lucious found himself in agreeance with the group. They seemed like a decent bunch to stick with.

He’d been fooled just as good as the idiot in the next gutter. He had expected certain death against Dihjat’s walls. His standards, to say the least, were of the lowest. In contrast, flanking the enemy undead to liberate an entire Regiment seemed much more pleasant of an ordeal. Now, however meager, hope budded. Praise the Empire, Lucious giggled. They were a mean bunch, but he had to give it to them: they sure knew how to manipulate everyone and everything.

How different were they from the Gods which they cursed, Lucious did not know.

For all he knew, the Third Regiment might already be done with, and this announcement was only made in order to decrease deserters. Or, even worse, it could just be a trap.

New Character Trait Gained.

Cynicism

The good news is that you will not be fooled. The bad news? The good news might not even be true! What is true? Just fuck it. Nothing even matters anyway.

A tired sigh escaped Lucious lips. This too, was something he had to come to terms with. This was just a joke to them. Entertainment. A little bit of color in their monotone immortalities.

In dealing with men, a dagger always sufficed. But for Gods? How would you defy those? What's a stick against the power of creation?

It was a hopeless ordeal. Everyone and everything was simply an oversized bug in comparison. Tragedy at it's best, oh the joys of it. Lucious saw no way in it, but at the very least, he promised himself he would be as insufferable as he possibly could be. That way, he could share his bitterness with the rest of the miserable world in his final moments.

But that too would be but a drop in a filthy ocean, Lucious thought to himself. He dropped his shoulders down in defeat, and prepared himself for battle. 

Not like it matters anyway.

+1 Wisdom

Haha.