The roosters crowed. Quite unnatural, given that it was the dead of night. All the dogs and wolves (and those like wolves) howled fiercely, as if relishing the blood moon. Swarms of bats and crows and ravens took off into the night and claimed it as their own. Rats and bugs and spiders scurried through the sewers and wastes. Deep beneath the ground, something stirred.
As the town clock's hand reached twelve, a flash of thunder drowned out the crowing, the screeching, and the howling, but even the terrible thunder could not drown out your bloodcurdling scream as you claw your way out from the ground. The mud was giving way, making it easy for you to climb, though it felt strange to move after a hundred years of being underground.
You clamber out and into the graveyard, slowly relishing your return to the land, after a hundred year long trial by the archdemons of hell. They deemed you so heinous, so twisted, that they forbid you from the afterlife, condemning you to undeath. To spite them, you took a good number of tortured souls from the demons and condemned them to undeath as well.
As if on cue, the rest of the graveyard trembled as skeletons clawed their way out of the dirt. While they stand hunched, you stand straight. While they shake and shamble, you walk with dignity and pride. While they are mindless, you possess mental clarity and acuity the likes this world has only seen once.
"And they will see it again..."
You realize you are weak, physically and magically. You are as feeble and as unimposing as the skeletons around you. You realize if you die again, you are forbidden from heaven and hell, and no one can die more than twice and retain their soul. No, that would mean one thing: your soul would simply cease to exist.
A fate far, far worse than death. You must find some way to stave off death, and possibly safeguard yourself from that cruel fate. Perhaps even gain immortality in the truest sense. You, however, cannot do it alone, nor simply with mindless undead. A hundred years have passed, but the auras of your followers still act as a beacon. You feel strong enough to call one of them:
-Your apprentice. When you took him in, he was a ten year old boy, barely half your height. Now, you feel, he is ancient. You can feel the weariness of his bones and soul. He was a prodigy in his town, before turning himself to you, perhaps at your level of skill and intellect. It can have only grown in his hundred and ten years of life.
-Your general. His bones lay in a sarcophagus, undisturbed in over seventy years. He faithfully continued your fight for power for twenty bitter years after your death. You feel you must reward him with the same gift you have: a second life, if a half-life at that. He was renowned for his martial prowess and inspiring leadership in his life. Now he will be renowned for cruelty and inspiring terror.
-A village peasant. A young girl, daughter of a bloodline of loyalists, directly from your first followers. She, the only competent family member alive, lives in an orphanage. True, she may not have your apprentice's magical aptitude or experience, or your general's strength and brutality, but she is the most loyal, the most devoted, despite never having met you. You have heard her prayers for years when you were still in hell, begging you to come back and save her. And you still hear her pray, praying for her master, praying for the savior her parents taught her about before they were murdered.
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Topic: (SG) Returned. (Read 11779 times)