Two figures sat unmoving and silent before a mild campfire as someone moaned in the background. Neither of them so much as looked at the other given the circumstances, but they each had finally started to grow comfortable in the other's presense, perhaps due to the time they had spent together.
‘So we just gonna sit here and think about what happened?’ Fei thought.
‘We wait for matthew to tell us what comes next.’
‘Sure, just place all our trust in the mysterious man of the woods.’
‘We don't even know where we are, so what direction do you think we should start goi-’
“We need to run.” The man in the background had finally made his way up to the campfire, announcing his arrival with a simple statement. When no one answered him he continued.
“Morgan ran away, so he'll be able to lead them straight to us as soon as they can put together a hunting party.” The man took a moment to look at Dei then, “And the last time anyone has seen an undead has to be at least half a century ago. I'm sure they'll want to do nothing more than put a stop to the situation as soon as possible.”
If Dei had cared enough she might have noticed a sneer on the man's face as he said these words. Even just based on the tone of his voice, he sounded halfway hopeful they would get caught within hours.
“We'll go Southwest.” Matthew interjected himself.
“Straight into the open arms of the Arcanists? We'll die.”
“No, we won't. Half the legends your nation tells about the Golden Monarchy are practically ghost stories. They're just mages after all.”
“Men almost entirly devoted to the pursuit of Greed!.”
“Doesn't matter, it's not our choice to make anyways.” Matthew used this as a chance to look at Dei pointedly.
“Seriously, you're following the skeleton here and not the other way around?”
Matthew willfully ignored him as Dei slowly looked up from the fire. With the barest of efforts she reached over to write in the ground.
“SW”
Matthew grinned in what Dei was starting to think he meant to be a mischievous way, before he looked back at the other man.
“Looks like you're about to meet your worst nightmares kid.”
“The name's John!”
The other two ignored his complaints as Matthew started putting away his bedding and Dei took a closer look at the dead men's clothing.
—
It had taken Sergeant First Class Ozwald only a couple of hours to gather the remainder of his Platoon and requisition the necessary supplies for a protracted chase before his group set out into the Forest Marren. Half of that delay had been due to the sudden arrival of one of the men that had first made contact with the undead monster. It had taken them some time to try and calm down the man, but it seemed like it would take far longer before he could manage to tell his story without clamming up as soon as he focused on the beast for too long. Regardless, Ozwald was sure that the medical team they had left the man with would eventually get something out of him in due time.
Thirty men set out at his back, all on foot considering the subtle nature of this mission. Even then it seemed too few to Sergeant Ozwald as he thought about the unique goals laid out ahead of him. A shard bearer. No one had ever really killed a shard bearer before so it wasn't technically impossible to do so with a group of thirty men, but somehow Ozwald got the distinct feeling he had been put out to dry on this one.
After a short discussion his commander had been able to make it clear that they were only sending a small group of men since the shard bearer was firmly in the middle of no man's land and they couldn't risk an innoportune war with the other countries by sending a larger force. But considering that meant they would prefer to send a bigger force in other circumstances left Ozwald feeling reserved.
Still, the men marched forward. The mood was dour as they traced the route of the Echo team patrol route to the point where they were said to have encountered the monster. No one spoke a word as twigs cracked underfoot and the first leaves of fall rustled in the wind.
Perhaps they had walked just a little bit slower than usual, just a little bit more cautiously than they needed to on your average day, because several hours had already passed by the time a forward scout returned to report a small gray outcropping in the distance.
The group approached cautiously, Ozwald calling for the group to split up into a lopsided L formation as they approached the strange structure. He was fairly certain this building hadn't been here a couple of days before when the last patrol came through, but soldiers did have a tendency to go blind on their daily patrols into no man's land. Thankfully, nothing out of the ordinary happened as the group finally closed in on the remnants of a brief battle.
It was obvious that no one was left in the area except for the three bodies that had been left behind. Strange, what had happened to Sergeant John Cane? He hadn't reported back with his soldier who had run from the battle so he was half expecting to find his body with the rest, so just what was this man up to?
The platoon quickly settled into a circular defensive position as the key leaders withdrew to the center to review the situation. Two full force mages were assigned to the platoon allong with three messenger trainees that were serving as the squad leaders for the platoon all met with him to discuss the way forward.
“They stripped the dead, scavengers.”
“Means they could be impersonating our men.”
“Just means they'll be taken prisoner as soon as they enter one of the other nations.”
“Did y'all notice there are no tracks out of this place? It's like they're ghosts.”
The leaders stopped their discussion at this point, taken back by the lack of actionable info as they looked to Ozwald for guidance. With a moment he made his decision, already having a feeling it would come to this as they had may their way to the crypt in the first place.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Two alpha team will recover the corpses to base camp then use the messengers to catch up with the rest of us. One Alpha will cover the north east sector to infiltrate Freland. One Bravo will go east towards the Broken Tribes. Three alpha will take the Southern Marches, and three bravo will take the Golden Monarchy. Remember that the primary goal here is to get a pinpoint location on the shard bearer, so don't get yourself killed in any pointless battles with the natives.”
To a man the squad leaders and mages nodded, and after a handful of further instructions on reporting timelines and retreat points, the platoon broke up to go their seperate directions.
Now armed with only a half squad of five men at his back, Ozwald looked towards the southwest marshes with a set jaw and distant eyes. If he had ever doubted it before, he was now sure that this mission would see the end of him.
—--
As Dei let Fei take over control of the body as they continued down the forrest path, she started to look inwards, looking into the abyss that had firmly taken the place of her heart within her open rib cage. Inside this place that was starting to feel almost homey to the girl, she looked over at a small orange flame that had started to flicker in the darkness. Try as she might, no matter how much she talked to the new essence it wouldn’t seem to wake up for her like Fei had done. No ethereal voice echoed in the void alongside her, nor did she have the distinct feeling of growth, and yet she was still sure this flame was somehow tied to John in some way, but not quite complete for some reason.
Pulling herself out of her inner void she looked over at the man trailing their awkward trio as they made their way through the woods. She almost opened her mouth to ask him a question before she remembered that she couldn't really do that anymore, lacking even the lungs required to form a whisper. Crossing her arms as she walked, Dei decided that she definitely needed to do something about figuring out how to talk one day. Not like she had any idea where to really start on that.
Fei abruptly stopped walking forward and Dei was suddenly brought back to reality as she noticed Matthew had stopped at the front of their group too. Looking past his back, she could just make out a dilapidated stone monastery just barely in view of their direction of travel.
“Hey John, you heard any reports about a random church in the middle of no man's land?” Matthew called back.
“Uhh, yeah actually. Probably that weird cult that we keep finding out here. They're mostly harmless though.”
“Mostly?”
“Yeah, they just get angry if they notice our mages are around.”
Dei bristled at this just a little bit, annoyed that she couldn't join in on the conversations like everyone else. She dropped down quickly to write in the dirt as John came over to look over her shoulder.
“Mages?”
The group started to walk forward again as John answered her, “Huh, guess you must have died a long while ago if you don't know about mages. They started popping up around twenty years ago when the five shard bearers graced the world with their presence.” Matthew seemed to scoff at that, but John continued.
“Well, ordinary people started to get access to a small portion of the power granted by the shards if they hang around the shard bearer long enough. So the arcanists in the south west started getting access to elemental magic, the messengers started getting mind powers, the southerners have skin changing, the eastern tribes control emotions, and the Freland cult is a bunch of loonies.”
“How descriptive.” Matthew drolled.
“Not like you’re one to talk big man.” The man paused before continuing a few steps later. “I was actually training to become a messenger in the princedom. I think I may have lost those powers when I surrendured to you, but the gist of it is that most of the leadership in our army is made up of people who can communicate telepathically. Kinda makes the army what it is today.” Dei thought she could hear the pride the man had for that army, even now.
No one answered him as Matthew continued to lead the way and Dei settled into her thoughts to think about this all. Dei eventually decided it wasn't worth stopping to ask follow up questions as they continued their journey, and soon enough they made their way up to the stone monastery they had been walking towards and a grand oaken door that seemed to open into a small courtyard.
No one stopped them as they casually opened the door and Dei started to fumble with a cowl she had taken off of one of the dead soldiers as she tried to pull the hood down just a little bit further. The rest of her body was also covered by thin leathers boots and a cheap looking tunic and pants overlaid with some only slightly broken chainmail, but it was servicable.
Even still, she worried as they finally made their way into the smal cloister in the woods as the door opened on a pair of robed men standing over a well in the middle of the yard. As they turned around at the noise of the opening gate, they seemed to freeze in place, and Dei froze with them, terrified that they had caught a glipse of her face from under the hood.
The men with her continued forward like nothing was out of the ordinary, John resting his hand on the hilt of his sword as though to let free an unspoken threat in the greeting.
“Hail there friends. It's been a while since we've had the pleasure of finding a place to rest so I was wondering whether I could buy some food off of you?” Matthew led for the group.
The robed men exchanged glances, and as Dei finally started to catch up to the group she noticed that they were wearing wooden masks over their faces.
‘Strange lot’ she thought to herself.
‘Cultists?’ Fei responded
‘Cultists.’
After a moment the duo seemed to come to a decision and the one in front responded for the both of them.
“Apologies sir, but we are but a humble cloister at the service of the sixth god. We don't have extra stores of food available at the moment for trade.
“Ahh, alright then.” Matthew replied, “We'll just be on our way I suppose, still got time before sundown.”
A gust of wind blew over the cloister walls at that moment, thrust downward at a strange angle by the difference in pressure caused by the nearby walls. The monks would later call it an act of divine providence, but Dei quickly decided it was just plain bad luck as the wind yanked upward on her hood raising the cowl up and back on her face.
Somewhat expecting this after the windy walk over here, Dei quickly snapped up with her arms to grab at the hood and pull it back over her face, but it still caught the attention of the robed men in front of her. Matthew kept talking about nothing important as the monks stared at her without making a sound, and John looked back at her as he followed their gaze.
All at once one of the men sprinted towards the church proper while the other man fell to his knees to prostrate himself on the ground. Matthew stopped talking, as John took off after the sprinting monk, and Dei looked down at the overlap in her tunic and her gloves that had pulled back to show the stark white shine of her bones.
“An undead has come! An undead has graced the-”
John flew into the back of the running monk as he screamed his way towards another set of oaken doors, and they went down in a tumble of legs and arms. John eventually got out his sword and put the tip of it to the back of the monk's hood, whispering something into the man's ear, but then the wooden doors began to open as several other men looked out curiously.
There was a momentary pause as the five new hooded monks took in the scene, before the one in the center with a decidedly more interesting mask than the rest dropped to his knees like the first monk by the well.
“Oh Herald of Death, thank you for your pressence on this fateful day! We welcome you to our sanctuary and ask of you your blessing!” The man droned on, clearly not done.
John looked back in confusion as Matthew looked a little bit too at ease with the situation considering he hadn't moved an inch since it all started. As for Dei, she merely took the moment to pull her tunic arms just a little bit more tightly into the cuffs of her gloves.
‘Maybe we can play this one off as a prank?’ Fei thought.
‘Or, maybe we can inherit some easy followers from this cult!’