Atherus cackled with glee as he watched his army march upon the small town. “Let it all burn”, he thought as he listened to the rhythmic clattering of his troops.
Bells began to toll as residents noticed the approaching death incarnate. Shouts rang out in the distance, calling for a fierce defense against the coming onslaught. He knew they would soon see the futility of their efforts. They would fall to his minions. And they would join him.
The head guard, Orthank, ran back and forth, giving orders and lending a hand where he could. He hadn’t believed it when the patrolman collapsed into his office, exhaustion and panic evident on his face. The man had claimed that the dead were marching towards the town, more corpses bursting forth from the ground to join the shambling masses.
Orthank had berated the man and demanded the truth behind his fear. Upon receiving no new information, he marched out of his room and climbed up to the top of the watch tower. He’d felt his jaw muscles clench involuntarily as he looked out upon a vision of death.
Despite not understanding how it was possible, he nonetheless had rung the warning bell and started the defense of his home. The third toll of the bell alerted everyone to prepare, regardless of experience. They all knew it was life and death. Families began to arm themselves, even placing weapons into the hands of young children.
One child had sprinted to the top of the tower, immediately clamoring for Orthank’s attention.
“What in the blazes are you doing here Sven?”
“Reporting for duty of course!”
Smiling grimly, he chastised the boy. “Your sisters need protecting far more than I do. Get yourself back to them posthaste lad.”
Sven’s face fell and he started to protest, but then he saw the decaying horde and paled.
“Ab-absolutely, sir!” He said, teeth chattering fearfully.
Orthank didn’t spare another moment for the boy, instead returning to his battle preparations. As he laced some leather into place before shouldering plate armor over it, his mind took him back to tales from his childhood. There had been an old man always wandering, disregarded by most of the townsfolk. Orthank could still smell the musty scent of stale piss and sour mead that emanated from the drunkard’s patchwork clothing.
“Dead, tha dead marching I tells ya…”
The man had always been berated for spouting nonsense, particularly in front of the children. Most folk said he’d been alright before he’d gone to Galgadash, but he had come back a blathering fool. No one took him seriously, assuming he’d drank away the last pieces of brain bouncing around in his thick skull.
Orthank shivered. He now knew that the fellow had in fact not been crazy. If anything, he’d been some poor victim of horrors only just now coming to life. The captain of the guard vowed to not let history repeat itself. They would hold out and defeat these monstrosities. No one would doubt his word of the marching corpses.
The speed with which the dead approached startled all. Most were half rotted, flesh sagging from bone. Others appeared to have long ago rotted away to bones that were a shade of yellow reminiscent of fat.
They crashed into the town gate, hastily braced with iron reinforced beams of wood. Splinters flew from the gate and into the eyes of unlucky defenders, quickly blinding more than a couple. The few that had already been maimed before ever seeing the undead, decided to stumble to the infirmary.
A skeletal hand burst through the wood and grab a defender by the throat. As it pulled the man to itself, it’s other hand thrust a spear upwards through the gate and into the man’s belly. Sounds like a skewered boar erupted from his throat; they were quickly drowned out by the gurgle of blood filling his lungs.
The other defenders absolutely panicked. Those on the wall could smell feces as they heard those below sprinting away in fear.
The gates crashed opened and rotting corpses spewed into the town. finally realized the impending doom.
“To me!! To me!!!” He roared, jumping down into the crowd of Necrobait. His body crashed into two skeletons that somehow managed to look surprised, despite not having anything to move on their skulls.
Immediately rising to his feet, he swung his enormous morning star back and forth, scattering bones and grinding some to dust. The dust seem to hang in the air, as if suspended by something.
Orthank felt a sharp pain in his side, and turned to see a skeleton that had snuck up on him. The damned thing had stabbed him… with its own rib? As he stared at the thing holding onto the rib shoved through his own, he noticed that it did, in fact, seem to be missing a rib.
Moving to crush the bastard into nothing, Orthank bravely twisted around and secured his fate. The bone dug deeper into the man, the very tip just touching his heart. Then digging into it. Drenching itself in his sticky red life juices.
The leader of the town’s defenses writhed uncontrollably on the skeleton’s rib, shredding his heart further and opening the wound. Blood and viscera gushed all over the animated bones, soaking into them.
With the last of his fading vision, Orthank watched the powdered bone dust in the air funnel itself towards the skeleton. It began coating his gore covered killer, seeming to thicken and solidify.
The skeleton yanked the rib out and started to viciously jab it into the fresh corpse, wrenching more fluids out of it and onto the dusty bones. The process repeated over and over. Gore coating the bone dust, the bone dust covering the gore and turning to red hued bone.
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Finally, Zelnith blinked. Wait. He blinked? Blunk? Blank? Whatever. He. Fucking. Blinked. A minute ago, he was nothing. All he knew was a desire to kill. And now here he was… fucking… blinking. With what eyelids? He’d long ago rotted away to nothing but bone. So… had he regrown eyelids?
Zelnith moved his bony fingers to his eye sockets and grated them against nothing, proving once and for all that he was indeed, a fucking skeleton.
He felt a sudden force crash into his head. Some peasant had picked up the fresh fertilizer’s morning star and swung it at him. The gall. Didn’t the filthy mongrel know that enough blunt force would kill him?
Pulling his rib out of Orthank one last time, Zelnith turned on the unfortunate farmer and skewered him like a head upon a pike. The point of his rib erupted from the man’s head, spraying blood and brains into the air only for it to rain down upon the skeleton.
Yet again, some bone dust settled onto his body and solidified into more coppery bone. But this time something else happened. Zelnith felt his eyes fill with text, because of course he had eyes, even if there was nothing in his sockets. He’s got to see somehow even if he wasn’t understanding how.
Zelnith’s eyes flitted rapidly as he read the error messages. For indeed, somehow error messages had appeared on his non existent eyes. They informed him of that very impossibility.
ERROR: NO EYES TO APPEAR ON. CREATE ILLUSION OF SIGHT AND TRY AGAIN.
Well… that was fucking weird.
ERROR: NO ORGANS TO PUMP BLOOD OR PERFORM OTHER FUNCTIONS NECESSARY FOR LIFE
Duh. I’m fucking dead.
ERROR: CONSCIOUSNESS IS REBOOTING DESPITE LACK OF A BRAIN. CREATING NEW PERCEPTION OF REALITY.
What. In. The fuck.
HELLO ZELNITH
Hello… voice in my head?
Oh great. Now I’m hearing voices in my non existent brain.
Zelnith blinked his lidless, eyeless sockets and suddenly wished he had something to rub sleepsand out of. Despite the rough awakening, he quickly figured some basics out. The messages in his vision made clear that he was a reanimated corpse and that something had given him special powers.
“YOU SHOULD HURRY UP WITH YOUR READING BEFORE…”
Another weapon smashed into his head. This time, he leapt upward and spiked the attacker to the ground, letting her blood seep into the soil. A warning message suddenly blotted out the battle.
WARNING: YOU HAVE SOAKED IN LESS THAN 50% OF YOUR ENEMIES LIFEFORCE. YOU WILL ABSORB NO SOUL ENERGY.
Soul energy? What could that even be?
As instant as his thoughts were, a new screen flitted into existence.
SOUL ENERGY: THE ENERGY NECESSARY TO KEEP A LIFE GOING. HIGHLY COVETED BY THE UNDEAD FOR ITS ABILITY TO BRING BOTH SENTIENCE AND POWER.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Atherus strode into town to survey the carnage his minions had wrought. Corpses were strewn about, and the ground looked like mud streaked with blood. He walked between each body, or piece if there wasn’t much left. Touching them as he went, the flesh withered and tendrils of red light flooded into the necromancer. He smiled to himself at his progress. He seemed to be nearing the strength required to create an Abomination level creature.
As he passed one particularly gory corpse, his eyes grew wide in shock when no tendril of life flowed into him. It was as if someone had already sucked the essence from the dead man.
Screams in the distance drew his attention. He quickly marched towards the center of town, following the racket.
“P-please milord, we meant no offense.” Stammered a man on his knees with his hands in the air.
“Bullshit!” Shouted another voice the necromancer did not know.
Rounding a corner, he came upon a strange scene in the town’s square. A hulking figure of scarlet tinged bone stood over the man that had been pleading his case.
It was in that moment that the skeleton drove a sharp bone through the man’s neck, causing a spray of blood and his body to shake as it both bled out and shit itself.
“There you go. You can shit yourself after I’ve killed you. Doing it before that is disgraceful.”
Atherus blinked in surprise at the scene before clearing his throat.
The bloodthirsty murderer turned to face him and looked surprised, but managed to say, “Ahhhh, you must be the guy that trapped me in this pile of bones.”