Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

After finishing his business, Loimos stepped outside into the night, the moonless sky provided the perfect environment for an undead such as himself, he walked through the deserted streets, the lull of the night only disturbed by distant howls and shouts, passing by a few places with light slipping to the outside, Loimos noticed how different Findpasser was to Throdqdmond.

It had no habitations outside of the walls, the place seemed to have been built with the express intent of one day becoming a booming city as well, rather than a settlement growing overtime, it was clear that everything had been laid out to be of this size.

No narrow back alleys, no scent of death hanging in the air, clearly the place was maintained much cleaner and wasn't ridden with murderous criminals, passing by a building titled adventurer guild, a stalwart stone structure, then by what seemed to be barracks for guards.

Many businesses dealing with potioncraft, enchantments and other magical affairs, as well as more regular things, such as blacksmiths and leatherworkers, for now, Loimos didn't bother with them, simply acknowledging their locations, he was walking straight for the supposed crypt housed within the city, it was most definitely not a fluke, the undead could clearly sense a good amount of death force.

It seemed lacking to be his majesty, but all that mattered was that an undead did seem to be dwelling inside, Loimos climbed over a fence that couldn't keep anyone meaning to get inside from doing so and approached an enormous chasm in the ground, the so-called crypt was more an enormous hole.

The width of it spanned around ten meters, a rough staircase could still be made out on the side, spinning around the edges of the pit, though some parts had clearly collapsed and even what was left didn't appear very friendly to anything that didn't weigh as much as a feather.

Moving away from the hole, Loimos headed for a section of the fence that looked like a gate, having noticed that there was a lengthy sign erected right next to it, reading it, the skeleton was made aware of what the general population knew of this.

To the living, this place was only rumoured to be the resting place of an undead, although, with the clear death force emanating all the way to the top, even if they weren't as sensible to it as Loimos, the death hunters should definitely know that it was a fact, yet, they hadn't dealt with it already.

Secondly, every year, at the end of summer, a torrent of wolf-sized, bat-like monsters were set to come spewing out, it was recommended to lock yourself at home for the day whilst adventurers and such were clearing out those that remained in the city rather than immediately flying off into the distance.

Loimos reached into one of his pockets, having to dig through salt, after immersing himself completely into one of the barrels, every single place that could hold any amount of salt was currently filled to the brim with it.

He fished out a badly decomposed hand, took off what was on his left hand and ripped it off, letting fall to the ground, his bony limb remaining mobile, using the extra hand he had kept on himself to quickly regain the use of his lost limb, he then enveloped the self-sustaining appendage in a thick ball of rot and blood, throwing it straight into the hole before stepping away.

With a splat, the mass of rot impacted on the ground soon after, allowing for Loimos's hand, which was just as aware as he himself was, the undead was pretty much piloting himself and his limb at the same time, a task of no difficulty when everything about him was undead and benefited from the full advantages.

Like a spider from the bottom of nightmares, the hand strolled along the ground, tip tapping as it headed for the source of the death force, ignoring the slumbering bat monsters, moving into a partly collapse passage, every surfaces soon changed, or rather, they received a new addition, the typical grey of the stone and protruding crystals had all been utterly covered by undead locusts, all seemingly frozen in place.

Hidden away at the very end of it all, a singular corpse cradling its own disembodied head, on its knees and wearing robes whose original colours couldn't even be guessed at this point, the head alone moved a bit as Loimos crawled closer.

The corpse wasn't skeletal or dried out, it was still much composed of flesh, festering with the same locusts as before, Loimos had been told much about the closest members of the undead court, the gravelords, the king himself, the advisors, which Faraday was a part of and the royal guards.

Amidst the advisors, there was one that lacked much combat proficiency, a seer whose locusts could be used to predict sites where tremendous amounts of death would soon occur.

"Irmandos" somehow speaking with the death tongue as nothing but a hand, Loimos called out to the seer.

A bright spear-like rock was stabbed right through his arm and chest, the head shuffled around, using its hair to position itself upright.

"That is indeed my name" he spoke in a strangely jolly tone, his decapitated head jumping up.

"I am sorry, but I can not be of much help any longer, this spear was stabbed into me by a death hunter, trying to remove it will result in my total erasure for certain, I know because I can see the future, a bit"

"Though, I can't do any divinations with that thing in me, maybe fate has changed its course from what I last saw a few millenniums ago, you must be looking to unseal his majesty Nitok, as all undead should be" Irmandos chuckled, opening and closing his jaw mechanically, lacking any sort of lips or tongue, he didn't even have any teeth.

"I am afraid I won't be of much use, the topography is doomed to have greatly changed since the war, but I can tell you about one thing for certain, Sun-Walker is a traitor"

Faraday had been sealed before anyone else, yet, he too had been putting suspicions on Sun-Walker, the last gravelord to have joined their rank.

"We undeads suffer from a problem, traitors within us, undeads who live in death"