Was so close to finishing and stayed up to do so and then a crash lost me lots of progress. Will upload the save tomorrow once I'm back from work and just b-line to the endpoint
Unfortunate to hear about that crash, AvolitionBrit. Was it in a specific region, or was it just a random bit of bad luck? Either way, good luck with making up lost progress - it's going to be equal parts terrifying and interesting seeing what sort of changes you've caused in the world so far!
QD: I really like your image of the Hall of Kings from Ashcinders, thanks for that 
It was quite impressive, kesperan; figured I should provide it with an appropriate description (even if I couldn't fit in the descriptions without image bloat). How long did it take you to make that place, actually?
Other than that, here's the much-belated finale of Turn 83.
There was no shelter in the graveyard. In times long past, it had been a monastery, perched high upon an ancient hill. The pillars and huts that had once stood there were now weathered and worn, their former murals and engravings bleached away by the wind and rain to leave bare faces of rock. Here and there lay a recognisable headstone, the last marker of the monastery’s former occupants, but all too many were similarly bleached and bare, or sunk into the dirt and mud until only their weathered crowns poked through the dirt.
It was a graveyard, and nothing more. Nothing but the wind, the earth, and the long-buried dead kept this place.
Yet there were three figures there that night, standing amidst the graves despite the bitter cold. Thin rimes of frost rimmed their hair and cloaks, but none moved, remaining perfectly still. One was a man; the others, something different.
“Damn that old fool,” The first muttered, curling the fingers of his gloved fist. The bones clicked gently beneath the leather as he flexed a cold hand, trying to work some feeling back into the numbed flesh. “Had to choose this place, of all places. Cold’s going to kill me before our mission, at this rate.”
Several long seconds of awkward silence passed before the first man cleared his throat and addressed the second.
“When the others arrive, let me do the talking. I know you two are… hardly the best with people.” He laughed at his own joke, then flinched uncomfortably as the motion tugged the wounds in his chest. Phantom pains lanced the base of his spine, sending pain shooting up and down his body. Still, it was probably nothing compared to what Citoj and Ehhu were feeling.
The Doctor had lived up to his reputation in the miracles he could perform, however long it took him to do so. Aril had been able to sew Citoj’s few wounds shut like one might mend a ragdoll, but Ehhu’s affliction had required… special attention. The old man had worked day and night in the cellar of that gods-forsaken crossroads inn to contain the transformation wracking Ehhu’s body, which had already spread beyond the initial wound by the time they had reached the Doctor’s hideout – but the process had proven difficult, and his methods had left his brother rather
changed.
Not for the first time, Aril found himself cursing his master’s recklessness. In his desire to avoid the fate of the last incompetent who held that position, he risked putting the whole enterprise at risk. The potion he had supplied to constrain the initial physical and mental anarchy of the thrall-change had been insufficient in the extreme, and the process of bringing his newly-blessed brother under control arduous. He could only hope that this meeting went smoothly and ended swiftly, such that he could return to what truly mattered.
It was almost midnight by the time the first of them arrived. His master rode out of the mists on horseback, moonlight glinting dully off his heavy plate and mail as the horse bore him up the hill and into the barren graveyard. The armoured brute dismounted swiftly, moving up toward the agreed-upon meeting place with a determined, purposeful stride and his massive battle-axe unslung. As his eyes alighted on Aril, he dropped to his knees in the freezing snow in respect of the new arrival’s superiority, forcing himself to swallow his private annoyance toward him.
“Master,” he intoned. The identity of Aril Vesseleyes fell away in an instant, shed now that it was no longer necessary. In his place stood Ulash Uveolbocot, loyal servant to one of the Firstborn’s greatest faithful and warrior of the Abyssal Cult.
“Ulash. You succeeded, then?”
“Barely, sir. He was compliant, but I had to cut many a throat to turn him. The cluster still lives, but diminished.”
“Good.” The armoured giant grunted, motioning impatiently with a hand. His armoured head turned from side to side, scanning the blank stones as though in search of something. “And what of Uveolbeoco? He played a role in this enterprise – where is he?”
Ulash Uveolbocot shook his head by way of reply. “The Usurpation’s forces eliminated them before I could meet with them, but we saw to it they would be silenced. They won’t know we’re coming.”
The Warlord gave a short grunt of understanding and made an off-handed gesture of the arm. Ulash recognised a dismissal when he saw one, and carefully settled into a more comfortable position to wait for the remaining members of the Council of Four.
Silence settled over the graveyard for a second time, broken only by the creak of leather or the soft hissing of breath; it was almost an hour before it was shattered entirely by the canter of approaching hooves, as a second horse and its rider emerged from the night and began their ascent up the hill.
“Finally,” The Warlord rumbled, irritated at the newcomer’s late arrival.
He was an old man, clad in a simple cloak of sable cloth like the habit of a clergyman. A long, greying beard streaked with white lines trailed down his chest, contrasting with the oily black of his hair. One thin hand clutched a polished disc of obsidian, its surface engraved with esoteric golden markings that glinted in the moonlight. His slender fingers turned it over and over as he approached them, one eye examining the rock while the other remained fixed on the small gathering.
“What took you so long, Doctor?” The Warlord growled, striking the ground with the base of his axe’s shaft to underscore his demand. “You were meant to be here nearly an hour ago.”
“Be grateful I came at all, Warrior!” His face, covered with the lines of age, creased further in annoyance. He jabbed a bony finger at Aril’s master as he spoke. “Do you know how difficult it is for me to leave the Court in secret? Without arousing suspicion? Were it not for how crucial this creature of yours is -!”
“Enough.” A pale will-o’-the-wisp flickered to life in the darkness, threading its way through the ruins until it stood before the group. As it approached, features began to coalesce from the shadows, slowly forming a full body and a set of tattered, dark robes, until the High Priestess of the Abyssal Cult stood before them. Tall, gaunt, and pale as a corpse in the lantern-light, her half-ethereal presence was enough to stop the brewing argument in a heartbeat. The black pits of her eyes swept across the group, searching for any sign of dissidence before she continued to speak. “We have quoracy. We must address the issue at hand.”
“The Usurper,” The Doctor spat, as though wishing to clear his mouth of the word’s taint.
The High Priestess nodded gravely. Her expression was almost unreadable in the low light and further shrouded by her ragged hood, but there was no mistaking the distaste in her gesture. “His actions have caused great damage. Our Lord’s work is almost undone.”
“No thanks to your predecessor,” The Doctor sneered, turning toward the armoured figure of Aril’s master. “His carelessness deprived us of a powerful weapon. Having it with us today –”
“And yet they are not, because of
your failures, Doctor!” The Warlord snapped, hands tightening on his great axe’s haft. His chainmail rattled as he stabbed an accusing finger toward the gaunt old man, eyes burning with ill-suppressed fury. “Your concoction was meant to keep it alive and under control, and see how that succeeded!”
The Doctor’s face twisted into an expression of harsh malice, fingers tightening around the polished disc of black stone he carried. A gentle clinking came from the pockets of his robes as he began to advance on the Warlord, vials of strange toxins and exotic specimens shifting about. “And were it not for y –”
“Enough, all of you.” The Elder growled. “Our lord requires discipline and unwavering dedication to His cause, not this pointless bickering. My decision is made, and our path set. The Law-Giver must perish, and his work with him. But it must be made to look natural – we cannot risk making any more a martyr of him than his death already will. Are you capable of arranging this, Doctor?”
The Doctor paused a moment, casting a glance at his fellows. The Warlord’s mail veiled his expression, though the tension in his limbs belied his anger; were they here, he didn’t doubt the Speaker would even try to hide their relish at the Warlord’s failure. What fools they were, he thought. They were powerful, but still no more than puppets to their Lord, and He had chosen to confer the true responsibility on him. Dreams of better things arose in the back of his mind as he replied, “Of course, Elder.”
“When are you closest to him?”
“My position grants me the run of the fortress, but I am usually at arm’s length from the court.” The Doctor’s expression twisted into a tight grimace. “I have tried to ingratiate myself to the man himself. New ways to slay the thrall-born, studies on their anatomies and the disease’s progress, scraps of information on our more expendable assets – but he just doesn’t seem to trust me!”
“I wonder why not,” Ulash heard his master mutter under his breath.
The Doctor seemed too absorbed in his thoughts to hear the snub. “I can try and get to him through the others. The Housekeeper, perhaps. I should be able to turn them given time-”
“Enough. Poison him. As soon as you can.”
The Doctor hesitated before replying, sweat beading on his brow despite the chill of the night. “I-it will be difficult. Getting past the nobility and menials alike, to say nothing of the-”
“Then think of something,” The High Priestess' voice, if it was possible, grew even colder. Frost crackled across the ground around with each word. “Poison his food after it has been prepared. Poison his wine or medicines. Poison the entire court if you must. Find a way to kill him, or it will be the worse for you!”
“It will be done, Elder.”
“Good. See to it!” The Elder growled, turning their irritated gaze on the Warlord. “I take it you have found a way to continue your predecessor’s work?”
“The purges were thorough, but we have identified multiple viable clusters. As soon as my agents locate suitable subjects, we can begin.”
“Good.” The High Priestess breathed deeply, and the whole of the graveyard seemed to shudder at the motion. Her cold, dark eyes seemed to stare clear through him, toward the kneeling figure of Citoj. “Remember your predecessor’s failures, Warlord Jigotdud. See to it that you do not repeat them.”
The Warlord’s grip on his axe tightened at that, but he gave a sharp nod of his head and bit back whatever words were festering in his throat. Ulash almost smiled at his master’s obvious annoyance, only to stop dead as the High Priestess turned to face Ulash, cold black eyes narrowing to reptilian slits. He hastily bowed his head in submission; Citoj’s form quivered beside him, half-forgotten fear pushing its way back to the surface of the ghoul’s mind at his former master’s presence. The scrutiny of the High Priestess was a palpable weight upon his back – even in her half-ethereal state, Ulash did not doubt that the Firstborn’s favoured daughter could rip the life from his body in a heartbeat.
Thankfully, her gaze lingered for only a moment before she turned to stare off into the dark, letting out a long sigh of breath as she went. Her form flickered like a candle’s flame, seeming to turn almost translucent for a moment before returning to a state of relative solidity. “We cannot risk the failure of this action. May the Firstborn guide your hand, Doctor.”
And with those words she turned fully on her heel and marched away into the dark winter night, leaving no footprints in the snow as her form began to flicker and fade into the shadows. The Doctor wasted little time in scrambling up into the saddle of his horse and spurring it sharply forward, galloping away to the east at great speed – he would need it to return to the Court before sunrise, and dodge the worst of the suspicious questions and awkward gossip.
The Warlord alone remained, still scowling after the retreating form of the Doctor and his horse. His breath hissed between tightly-clenched teeth to mist in the cold air; the shaft of his mighty axe groaned under the force of his grip as he fought to quell the boiling anger within him. With a sudden snarl, he lashed out with an armoured hand to smash a featureless tombstone to gravel. Chunks of stone and grit flew in a dozen different directions, the metal of his gauntlets sparking as they met the stone, but the Warlord did not stop there. He stormed on in rage, lashing out left and right with his fist and axe alike to send tombstones into crumbling ruin and hurl shattered pebbles in all directions, stopping only when there were no more markers to vent his wrath upon.
“That snivelling,
incompetent coward will doom us all,” The Warlord gritted out from between his teeth, breathing hard from the ruin he had wrought in his temper. “I refuse to let our work be for nothing. We have all sacrificed too much to let it be for
nothing.
“Ulash, Citoj, Ehhu – come with me. We must take a different path.”
2nd Opal, 879Ulash Uveolbeocot stood on the rain-sodden hillside, staring across the wide, rushing river that cut through the land before them.
A quartet of bridges spanned the expanse to provide the sole link between the two sides of the expanse, broken only by a squat two-storey barbican formed of wooden logs; he could make out the shapes of two men outside, wandering back and forth across the strip of land where the river’s raised bank met the wood of the bridge. A watchtower of stone and wood stood off to the side to watch over the approach to the castle, but its crenelated top was bereft of any archers or ballistae and its half-wooden walls bore the signs of unrepaired weathering from rain and snow.
Silverthrone, seat of the Realm of Silver.
Beside him, Ehhu was almost unrecognisable as the half-starved creature that he had dragged out of that prison months before. His once-spare frame was now bulky with ropes of muscle, covered in a patchwork pattern of burns and half-clotted wounds from a close encounter with a hulking creature of the dark. What skin was not burned or bloodied was a sickly, cyanotic colour, stretched tight over muscle and bone to the point of translucency. Citoj flanked him on the other side, his lovingly-repaired mask casting rippling shadows across the wet grass. Though his thick leather robes concealed the bulk of his blessings, Ulash knew full well of the blistered mass of muscle and bone that lay beneath the thick garments.
The Warlord had warned him against the use of thralls – powerful as they were, Gopet’s Spawn always became either uncontrollable or listless once the infection entirely saturated the brain, as the slow, lumbering forms of Ehhu and twice-reborn Citoj could attest to. It had been an arduous task to keep the two moving on schedule: every second step it seemed like they were rushing off to tear into some small creature in the brush, no matter how little flesh was upon its bones. Every little sight or sound made by a living creature was enough to propel them into a killing frenzy of bloodlust and hunger – fine qualities for the battle yet to come, but a liability outside of it.
Instead, he had turned to a simpler, rawer form of weapon, calling on the holy magics that his god had seen fit to grant to him back in the echoing stone halls of a dwarven citadel.
A score of resurrected corpses stood around him on the rain-sodden hillside. Most of them were still clad in the torn, tattered remnants of the clothing they had worn when they were struck down, scraps of cloth and leather still clinging to their half-rotted frames; others were completely bare, their rags stripped away by the wind and weathering of their march through several stormy nights and snow-lashed plains. Not one had gone peacefully, as the black, crusted gashes across their chests, dark red marks around the throats and the occasional missing head or limb could attest. Their simple consciousnesses had been slaved to his will by the spells that animated them, a solid wall of bodies that he could control at the cost of their finer skills. They would not last long in a pitched battle, but neither were they required to.
Indeed, some had fallen already. There had been a great beast lurking in the hills near the fortress, a creature born in back when the world was still young. It had somehow escaped the deep caverns in which it dwelled and slipped out onto the surface, seeking new prey to sate its hungers. The arachnid nightmare had wasted no time in barrelling toward and through the ranks of the living dead, tossing whole bodies into the air like weightless rag dolls before snatching them from the sky with its vast, chitinous legs; its mandibles had snapped others apart like stalks of wheat, crushing flesh and bone with every bite. It had tossed and turned left and right, its webs binding bodies in place with every motion. It had stamped the living corpses into the ground in the wallowing struggle around it. But it was foredoomed, and it went down with one of the corpses shattering its carapace with a kick strong enough to break its own rotting bones; the horde around it had joined in with their own blows and bites, slowly rending the vast creature apart even before its heart had ceased to beat.
It was an unfortunate loss – the walking siege engine it could have served as would have been a powerful tool against the high castle walls, but his still-fledgling powers were insufficient to raise the great beast’s ragged frame. He would make do with what he had.
Ulash Uveolbocot, warrior of the Abyssal Cult, raised his massive axe of blistered metal aloft and bayed, “Forward, my brothers! Leave none alive!”
The undead seething around him surged forward in reply. It was not so much a swarm as much as a wave: bodies fell as their clumsy movements sent them crashing to the wet soil under their rotting feet, only to be raised up again and borne forward by the rippling motion of the other bodies around them, reanimated corpses tumbling over one another in their haste to reach the warm, living bodies in the castle.
The two soldiers outside the main gates stood no chance against the horde; one was dragged down shouting in moments as the dead set upon him, kicking and punching every inch of available flesh they could reach, a few setting their teeth to work upon the ample exposed flesh offered by the thrashing form before them. The other managed only a few more steps before one of the crawling zombies struck a sharp blow to the back of his trailing leg, sending him to the dirt as the limb buckled beneath him. The horde immediately set to their grisly work, blood and shreds of torn cloth flying in a dozen directions as the undead began to pry their way into the soft meat below the copper of his armor.
Ulash did not care. He strode past the screaming, thrashing mass of corpses and into the fortress’s gatehouse, the lumbering forms of Ehhu and Citoj sweeping across the bridges along with him. Leather creaked beside him as the two thralls shivered with anticipation, their breaths hissing through tightly-clenched teeth as they fought to restrain the bloodlust driving their blessed flesh. Ulash resisted the urge to sigh at their impatience, knowing that it would be wasted on their half-addled minds. The last of the Doctor’s potion had run out days ago, and so he had been forced to resort to a crude, half-impotent brew, thrown together from scavenged ingredients and brewed in the empty shell of a raided hamlet.
He busied himself instead with scanning the broad courtyard in front of him, eyes leaping from figure to figure as he sought his quarry – the golden-haired usurper that dared call himself Law-Giver. Though they could be mistaken for traders or travellers at a glance, he expected their disguise to falter any moment now; perhaps the stampeding horde would give them away, now that they were nearly done with the flesh on the bridge, or the scent of iron and rot that hung upon the cloaked figures of all three men. If the Usurper could not be found before their illusion was discovered, the element of surprise would be lost and all of his master’s plans could be for nothing.
Ehhu gave a sickly gurgling noise and lurched forward, an unsteady step that almost unbalanced the grotesquely muscled form of the thrall. Unable to restrain his annoyance, Ulash turned to pull his brother back to balance, only to freeze as he followed the eyeline of the lurching creature’s head. Although partly obscured by the iron and bronze of its guardians, the Usurper’s form was unmistakable in his armor of glistening white. Ulash’s face twisted into a mask of murderous hatred beneath his helmet’s face-guard at the sight of him, and he let loose a diabolical roar of fury; the thralls at his side and the corpses behind echoed the cry, marching forward in synchronisation with their master.
The element of surprise played to their advantage, the Usurper’s men looking up in shock at the sudden, animalistic howling. For a moment, all seemed to still as the two sides confronted one another: the white-clad saviour of the Realm of Silver and his close coterie of warriors, famed across the lands for slaying Blighted Thralls, staring down the black-clad progenitor of a new Obin Blight and its sinister master, surrounded by the swarming undead.
Then the moment broke, and the battle began. The horde of corpses surged forward to wear down their masters’ prey, war-cries filling the air as the living surged to meet them in reply. Aril and his thralls were more discriminate, holding back to let the tide of dead flesh and bone tie up the chaff. Only when the Law-Giver and two of his personal guard stood alone did they break ranks and charge toward their targets: Citoj swinging a stone-hard fist toward the crippled dwarf, Ulash hammering the head of his axe toward the sword-wielding guard, and Ehhu barrelling toward the Law-Giver himself with a rabid howl of bloodlust.
Jas Gloryage met the thrall’s charge and swinging blade with one of his own. The shriek of metal on metal joined the cacophony of battle as his shield rang from the side of the thrall’s helmet, staggering but not stopping it. Beneath a mask of burned flesh and broken, weeping blisters, the ghoul’s bloodshot eyes burned with hatred as it forced its jaw to work. It reared back, baying like a wild animal as it slammed its iron-clad head into Jas’ nose, sending the Law-Giver staggering backward with a grunt of pain, stars bursting behind his eyes. Teeth flashed forward and crunched against his pauldron, failing to gain purchase on the smooth, hard metal; a few broke off entirely from the force of the bite, falling to the dirt with a spray of diseased blood, but the thrall barely seemed to register the injury it had done itself. It brought its free hand up and swung with a stone-hard fist in wide, sweeping strikes, trying to knock the Law-Giver off balance.
Jas drove it back with a mighty, double-handed swing of his axe, forcing the thrall to retreat or risk evisceration by the razor-sharp edge of its head. A second and third blow sent it scrambling backward with a hiss of constrained aggression, trailing a thin line of blood from a shallow wound in its elbow. With the creature temporarily driven back, Jas dared steal a glance toward his comrades.
Eman had scored a few shallow cuts across the necromancer’s exposed limbs, but his shield was badly dented and the sorcerer was pressing his attack, directing the swarming horde of living dead to intercept Eman’s blows and wear him down; anyone who might come to his aid was bogged down by the lumbering corpses. The beak-masked brute of leather and metal was locked in a deadly struggle with Master Galka amidst a ring of broken undead bodies; whenever one of the corpses drew too close, Galka’s heavy metal cane or steel pick would flash out and send a body falling with a skull shattered to splinters, or a chest caved in and rent open from the force of impact, leaving the thrall to pace back and forth like a trapped animal as it waited for an opening.
A second swipe of its blistered blade forced Jas to return his attention to the foe before him. The unnatural metal met the steel of his axe with enough force to jar his arms through the armour, forcing it to the side; while a sharp twist of his wrist managed to redirect the axe’s head into the thrall’s armoured side, it failed to break through plate or mail. Jas levered it free with a grunt of effort and swung the heavy axe in a vicious arc, tearing a jagged rent in the metal covering the creature’s shoulder. The blade stuck fast in the iron and the blighted thrall moved, pivoting around the shaft of the battle-axe to drive his blade into Jas’ side, cutting a handspan through his armor and into the flesh beneath.
Jas gritted his teeth against the pain, almost losing several as it took the opportunity to drive a steel-shod fist hard against his jaw. The force sent the master of the Realm of Silver staggering backward, pulling his axe free from the shattered wreck of the thrall’s shoulderguard. To his sides, the battle continued to rage: Eman ducked beneath a wild swing of the necromancer’s blistered axe and forced him backward with a flurry of scimitar strikes to the arms and chest, before wheeling about to cut almost completely through the beak-masked thrall's arm as it sought to strike from behind; Master Galka was tearing a path through the necromancer’s shambling hordes with his pick, severing limbs and heads with every strike.
The blade flashed out again. Jas tried to turn away, to raise his shield, to dodge out of its path, but he was too slow, and the thrall too close.
There was a grunt of pain, a spray of hot, wet blood, and a sickly thud.
The thrall shrieked in rage as Eman staggered back, blood spraying in a torrent from the stump of his shoulder. His left arm lay on the ground a few steps away, cut cleanly from his shoulder and still twitching with instinctual movements.
The thrall surged forward to drive its gauntleted fists into his face, hammering blow after blow into the buckling metal of Eman’s helmet. Eman staggered backward, dazed and unbalanced by the thunderous stream of punches he had received. As a final punch sent him half-staggering, half-spinning away from the thrall, it lunged forward toward his back with its blistered metal blade. Fabric tore, leather split, and a welter of blood erupted from Eman’s chest as the sword stabbed clearly through his right lung and out through the front of his chest.
For a moment, Jas felt his heart stop dead in his chest. The blade slid back through the wound the thrall had inflicted as Eman began to crumple to the floor, but the ghoul was not done with him yet. Features twisting into a malevolent leer, it wrapped its fingers around Eman’s crumpling form and lifted him overhead, muscles straining as they took the full weight of the armoured warrior’s body. A convulsive shudder wracked its frame as it flung him aside like a child’s toy, sending the badly-wounded man crashing to the dirt several meters away; he rolled several feet, twitched slightly, then lay still.
Jas wasn’t quite sure what came out of his throat in that moment, only that it was violent and raw enough to make the thrall flinch back from his wounded friend in surprise. The Law-Giver was at its throat almost before it could blink, hammering his halberd toward its exposed neck in a brutal arc. One of the walking corpses blundered into the way instead, taking the full force of the blow to its rotting skull and showering him with fragments of bone. Jas wrenched the blade free and swung again, his axe splitting the air inches from the thrall's blistered head; it jerked aside before lunging forward with a bestial cry, whole body spasming with the force of movement. Its sword scraped across the scarred metal of his right pauldron, but slid free before it could bite into the flesh beneath.
Jas headbutted the thrall full in the face, meeting its snarl of rage with one of his own. There was a sickly snap of bone and cartilage as its nose broke, accompanied by another blaring shriek from the thrall’s throat as it reeled away. He followed it up with a thunderous right hook that sent its head rocking back on its grotesquely over-muscled shoulders, blood and shards of enamel flying from its lips as it staggered back. The blood pounded in his ears as he continued to slash and strike at the thrall, the rest of the battlefield almost fading away as he sought to rip apart the creature that had so badly wounded his friend.
The ghoul’s entire body strained with the effort of movement as it fought on. Its vision swam and pulsed red. Its mouth was full of rot and saliva, the viscous fluid dripping steadily between its jagged teeth. All around it was chaos and noise and blurry, thrashing figures, the living and the dead and those not fully belonging to either blending together into one massive smear of sounds and scents.
Somewhere deep, deep within the fractured remnants of the thrall’s mind, something gave way. Already weakened by the lack of the concoction keeping it in check, the thunderous blow from the Law-Giver’s gauntlet had dislodged long-suppressed sections of the ghoulish creature’s mind. It swayed drunkenly on its feet as unbidden thoughts and memories clawed their way to the surface of its mind. it raised its hands to ward them off, but still they came like a swarm of bats, battering away at him with every passing moment. The hamlets it had butchered and left lifeless, the great skinless beast it and its brethren had struck down in the snow-dusted wilds, the gathering in that silent place of mud and stone –
The sensation of teeth sinking into its elbow, and its master’s wide, malevolent smile.
Jas, of course, knew nothing of the internal chaos tearing at the thrall’s mind. He saw it stagger backward, hands raised to ward off an imaginary foe, eyes wide and unseeing, and seized the advantage presented to him. The first blow of his axe tore through the iron armour covering its shield-arm to lay the limb beneath open to the bone; the second scored off its battered shoulderguard as it convulsively dodged out of the way. The third it caught with its bare hand, holding the axe's shaft fast in its grip.
“No.” The creature rasped. Something shifted in its jaundiced, blood-crazed eyes as it shoved a hand against Jas’ chest, sending him off-balance from the unnatural force of the motion. The thrall raised its blood-slick blade aloft, face painfully contorting into a snarl as it forced its jaw to form intelligible words. Blood bubbled between its gapped, fractured teeth with each motion, dripping down the rust-streaked ruin of its breastplate as its whole body tensed in readiness to kill. “No. More.”
And in one smooth movement, it pivoted on its heel and swung with all its might, aiming for the neck of the huge thrall that Master Galka was wrestling with.
The hulking ghoul didn’t even try to move, or perhaps it simply lacked the opportunity to. The blistered metal of the blade tore through flesh and bone enhanced by disease and dark magic as easily as paper, even as the axe-bearing necromancer shouted in denial and surged forward with his weapon raised high. Something very much like a sigh of relief whispered from the creature’s ruined throat, and the beak-masked thrall’s body gracelessly slumped to the bloodied grass and went still.
Ulash’s scream of rage seemed to shake the whole fortress as he lashed out with his axe, striking left and right in blind fury as he sought to clear a circle around him. He raised a hand, letting the thrill of power he had come to associate with his Lord’s holy magic rush down his fingers as he swept an arm about himself. A dozen limbs and bodies - Citoj’s headless form among them - shuddered violently as he sought to raise them, feeling the pulses of awareness as the simple, crude consciousnesses he had instilled into them came into being; many immediately winked out, cut down by the humans and their stunted brethren as soon as they began to rise. Citoj was among them, the rising thrall collapsing with a dwarf’s bronze axe driven through his ruined armor and into the diseased flesh beneath.
The thrall’s whole body shuddered, convulsing spasmodically as his master’s commands wrestled against its treacherous mind. One hand locked like a vice around the wrist of its opposite, and the sound of grating bone joined the cacophony of battle. Ropes of unnatural muscle bulged with the strain of moving. The thrall’s teeth ground and splintered as its jaw seized up, sending jagged knives of enamel into the flesh of its mouth and lips. Yet still did the blade turn, the blistered metal Ulash had intended to strike the law-giver down inexorably moving toward his puppet’s own throat.
And as Ulash Uveolbocot smashed one of his attackers aside and surged forward, Arkur Fedemnoñi smiled and forced his hand to move one final time.
Ulash’s scream of hatred and frustration rang from the stones as he turned on his heel and rushed back across the drawbridges, swinging his axe left and right to clear a path through the living and the dead. Blood sprayed across his armor and leaked down into his eyes, but he barely registered the stink or the strain in his limbs. He barely registered the stinging sensation in his eyes and wounds as he sprinted onward, feeling the humans cheering and the faint sensation of necromantic connections being broken. He did not dare to stop running until he was several miles from the fortress of Silverthrone, alone under the light of a pale moon and run ragged from the exhaustion of the chase. There was a sensation like burning magma inside his chest, hot and suffocating, and his exhaustion was only half of the cause.
Gritting his teeth, Ulash forced himself to rise to his feet. His master would not be pleased by this turn of events, but he had half an idea as to how he might dodge the worst of his wrath. One hand groping in his pack for the blank form of a quire, Ulash Uveolbocot began to walk on into the night, toward the distantly burning lights of living hamlets.
OOC: I did think of adding dialogue to the final big fight to spice it up a bit, but I wasn’t confident in my abilities on that front. Anyhow, that's all she wrote.
Unraveller, Eman's missing his left arm (attack of opportunity went a little too well) and may get occasionally winded due to a damaged right lung; there may be a few lesser undead wandering around Silverthrone, but nothing like thralls. The Band of Wax were a hell of a lot tougher than I expected, all things considered.
My official museum submission is a stack of thirteen human leather-bound books penned by Aril Vesseleyes: twelve detailing the necromantic rituals and practices of The Abyssal Cult, and one self-justifying his actions in service to The Abyssal Cult. Their titles are listed below:
Other than that, I hope you enjoyed reading this and wish you all luck with your turns.
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Topic: Museum III, adventure succession game (DF 0.47.05) (Read 475921 times)