Do You Believe in Fite After Death?

[redford]

John wondered what to say as he stood before a door.

Well, above a door, more correctly. He munched a spent cigar as he wondered for a second, each idea sounding worse than the last. He'd been working on a list of men who could help him defend the cleansing of Raieria, and nigh the top of the list was the wizard Telgradian, Shinsou Vaan Osiris.

He knocked, despite his lack of preparation. A moment later the door opened, and John spoke before the man in a white coat could utter a greeting.

"Want to change the world, Telgradian?"

[redford]

John strode through the forest.

Perhaps 'strode' is a generous term. What he was doing was hacking his way through the dense undergrowth, taking slow, deliberate steps forward, along with the rest of his company behind him. Twenty-six men had embarked on this trek into Raieria's corrupted lands, all men of good courage who vowed to cleanse the plagued land. It was dark, but the vague red light had yielded of late to shafts of sunlight, signaling a clearing nearby.

Hopefully it was the fort. They had been wandering around for days in the area, attempting to use a distant mountain as a reference, to little benefit. When they found (and held) the fort, it would provide a useful foothold in Raieria, which would allow them to stymie the spreading corruption, push back, and allow the researchers to perform their task.

What had once been a trail opened up before them, eventually opening into a wider path, leading up to a stone wall. The men began to murmur in excitement. With any luck, tonight they wouldn't be fending off the undead. The trees broke completely before a courtyard, providing a view of the old keep, its walls thick with pinkish moss and ivy. The courtyard lay before it, with ten foot walls set up, occasionally broken down by age or other malevolent force. Beyond, large iron-banded doors sat closed, appearing old, but more importantly, intact and solid. Likely that anyone who fled the keep when the Red Forest became such, was destroyed by its denizens, and anyone who stayed simply starved. The men dismounted, those who had horses at least. They had brought ten of them, seven for supplies and the remaining with riders for messaging, and other uses.

John led them into it, examining the keep for holes and burned out towers. There were a few walls broken, and one collapsed spire, but the thing was solid and defensible, at least. The men, though hardy, were wearied by the adventure of finding the thing, and would need rest soon.

But not now, now we need to secure it. He called to the men, and they snapped to, realizing the situation.

"Three archers in the courtyard, arrows drawn. Night is coming, and we need to secure the keep before then." He turned to Daniel, who was already walking toward him. He had insisted on wearing his armor and twin-swords throughout the trip. John took a little bit of pride in his craftsmanship for the boy. The armor had held up in his time with the Rangers, and the man had a keenness to his eyes that he lacked when he was a simple recruit, running from his father to be fitted for armor and weapons. He was a man of his own now, if still a bit unsure of how to go about it. The half-giant spoke to his subcommander, short but to the point. He clasped the boy's shoulder, nodding to his squad of eight men.

"Send your fastest rider, we have the fort secured, tell Vincent to send the research team with the remaining containment squad."

Daniel turned, calling a name sharply, relaying the message, but John's focus was already elsewhere. They needed to get inside the keep and scout it out. The half-giant called out.

"Six swords with me, we will search the keep. The rest of you secure the courtyard. Find fresh water, this place has to have a stream nearby, but we return by dusk. Nobody goes out at night, understood?"

A chorus of 'Yes Sir!' was their response. For a moment, John found himself again, regained the mindset of a commander. These lives weren't just under his protection, they were entirely his responsibility.

Which made the weight of the thought that some of them wouldn't make it home a little heavier. He turned to Shinsou, who had volunteered his considerable magical talent to their number. "Stick with them here at the courtyard, they may need you." He leaned closer to the wizard.

"Something stalks us in the shadows, more than the usual undead. Be wary, friend."

With that, he turned with his six men, aiming to have the fort scouted before nightfall.

They all knew firsthand what kind of creatures stalked the Red Forest at night.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Want to change the world, Telgradian?

Cromwell’s sudden appearance at his doorstep and the enigmatic challenge should have taken Shinsou by surprise, but they didn’t.

Their previous meeting in the Citadel was an intense one. What had started as a training session had morphed into a clash of titans and differing philosophies on power. How it was best applied to the world they lived in? Cromwell was a just man and argued that strength came from a much deeper place. Shinsou, on the other hand, offered a different perspective. Strength was a game of numbers. You had to be stronger than the tyrant you opposed in order to truly bring change to the world. The weak died and the strong got an opportunity to make the world a better place, and that was all there was to it.

Osiris had stood by his viewpoint, but John had caught his eye. Now, it seemed, he had also caught Cromwell’s attention. The giant wanted to see the power of Shinsou’s conviction, to see if he could change the world. Coming straight from a group called the Tarot, John Cromwell had come to his former opponent with an earth-shattering proposal.

Containment in Raiaera; the dawn of a new age.

Despite the scale of the task laid at his door, it been an easy decision. This wasn’t just a mercenary mission to wipe out a gang of slavers in Salvar, or spread the word of the goddess Am’aleh. It wasn’t even remotely related to the Brotherhood’s welfare. This was a first true opportunity for Shinsou to make a difference to someone other than himself and make good on his words. That, and the Telgradian happened to like Raiaera. Even after Pode’s handiwork, the remnants of the elven nation’s fine culture had survived. The whole country fascinated Shinsou, especially their fascination with exotic weaponry and ancient magic. It wasn’t the melting pot of cultures that Corone was, but it held airs and graces above and beyond most of the other shitholes he had visited. Even in the sorry state it was currently in, Raiaera certainly supplanted Lornius.

The journey into Linqualme, through the Red Forest, had stretched for days and was flecked with testing times. Shinsou found himself counting the hours only by how long it took his stomach to feel empty. The logistical frustrations of keeping the cursed at bay was now just another discomforting fact of life. Here, even the rain seemed to eat at your skin. Any sense of direction in the giant forest warped as their only reference point, the mountain, fell off the horizon. There had just been a wall of symmetrical foliage in every direction by the time their troupe had made any real progress.

Eventually, Cromwell had led them from their maddening trek into the dilapidated fortress. Though initially buoyed, Shinsou’s heart sunk as his robed form wandered into the courtyard for an inspection of the facilities. It was the kind of environment that could drive someone insane. Whilst appearing sturdy enough to defend, it lacked basic the amenities to support a task force of their size. It wasn’t John’s fault; there was no way to prepare people for this. That’s why he was here, after all. Shinsou wagered, however, there weren’t too many unpolluted freshwater streams nearby or animals this far out.

I can purify water, but I can’t just magic food out of thin air… Shinsou frowned, looking at a inventory list of their supplies and quickly calculating they had roughly two days food, with careful rationing.

John issued his commands and left Shinsou and the men to it. As the Telgradian scaled the ramparts for a better view of the lay of the land, he thought about how this place was renowned for chewing up civilization and spitting it back out again. The only people insane and durable enough to live here were the accursed that would hunt them. It didn’t matter, though. Without food and water, they would starve long before their enemies descended.

With a hop down from the crumbling gantry, Shinsou signalled for his men to gather. John Cromwell was an able and respected commander but couldn’t do everything on his own.

“I want four men to split into pairs and picket the trails in and out of the fortress at a hundred yard intervals," Shinsou commanded. "If anything moves that isn’t Tarot, I want to know about it."

There was a flurry of footsteps as four men jumped into action. Osiris continued "Also, one man to deliver a message to John. There’s no internal water source here. I can purify any contaminated water but we only have two days food and that’s without catering for the research team. Ask him to look for signs of livestock, too, and let’s hope for the best. In the meantime, I want half hourly activity reports from the pickets."

There were no questions, no begrudging looks and not a shred of tiredness about the men. They were impressively trained, setting about their tasks with enthusiasm despite the bleakness of their surroundings. It filled the Telgradian with hope that, at the very least, the people he was working with were dependable.

...Because when it comes down to the fighting, we're going to need every ounce of your strength.

[Gum]

Scattered bones in the catacombs.

Rolling through the rotten red woods came the whispered footfalls of ten thousand evlen spectres. Each ghost was invisible, but still crawled through the skin as a simple suggestion of tangible calibre. Dead soldiers of a dead nation, they were shrouded in the mercurial mystery of a civilisation's forgotten march. The fading memento of their blood swept boot prints trod out a lengthy trail. Long gone unused, but bizarrely undergrown, the path was narrow and wearily worn. From the depths of the crimson woodlands up to the rear of the falling fort, the pathway was a secondary approach to the very same structure that heroes Cromwell and Shinsou were requisitioning with regimented urgency.

The trail's haunted persistence pulled its patrons beyond the restrictions of the aged ramparts. The power of suggestion leaned heavy on the subconscious of any living whose shoe soles pounded the trail. Adjacent to a leering watch tower looming from the fortifications was a gaping maw of murky steps winding down instead of up. The steps were the only way in and out of the shadowy catacombs beneath. The old spirits ached for any souls to wander into their hungering gut, the lingering deceased craved fresh captives to sate their festering cavern of graves and torture.

"Stay close!"

The words were a warning from one member of Sir John's detachment to another member of Sir John's attachment.

"That's not our assignment!"

The warned man failed to respond and the warner adjusted his stance with determined insistence.

"Stay close now."

Nothing. The cautious man turned to look for another man to back up his patently sound advice, but when he looked back the warned man he was pleading with had quickly disappeared around the corner and wandered away from their courtyard assignment.

Hints of a wonderful kind tickled the tempted soldier's fancy. Something unspoken promised him sheer delight. Such was the grip on his mind that his comrade's words had failed to reach his ears. He came out of a dilapidated breach in the rear fort walls and found himself staring uncontrollably at the steps that sank into the dreadful darkness of the beckoning catacombs. To the sane the stairwell would instill the anxious rhythm of an unsettled heartbeat, but to this lost soul surely there was a bounty below promised just to him.

As the warned man started down the steps the lie of potential elation began to fade with the dimming light around him. The horror of the scarlet stained subterranean sandstone walls surrounding him began to close in. He knew it was too late to turn around, he had to keep going. After all, his soul belonged to the dead now. He was convinced of that fact with crippling immediacy. He placed his hands on the claustrophobic flanks to steady himself in the blackness. He was struggling to find his feet on the inconsistent breadth of steps. In touching the walls, his fingertips felt a rash of old graffiti, it was the carved initials of long dead lovers. Their teenage passion had been shared in the seclusion of this dungeon; and so undying was their love they committed their bond to stone.

At the bottom of the stairs a flaming torch gave respite to the wandering soldier, the illumination was a hint of salvation in the depths of a damned insanity.

"Who's there?" asked the lost soul dearly, tempted by a hopeful sensation that he was not the only living being in this den of the dead.

The stairwell had opened into its broad destination, there was a large room deep beneath the fort. The fiery light illuminated bones piled with heartless efficiency in cavities dug into the walls; femur upon femur, tibia rested against tibia. Each bone pile was topped the indignity of anonymity, skulls lined up in a row. Between the bone filled cavities there were solid doors of old oak with iron bar openings. The soldier recognised prison cells when he saw them, even in the poor light.

At the far end of the room there was a cell that seemed occupied, there was a sound. Something was pacing back and forth, unafraid of its grim surroundings. The sound of the apparent inmate was more like a beast than a human, quadrupedal with a grumbling roar of defiance.

[redford]

The giant, iron-banded door to the keep opened slowly on creaking hinges, shedding pinkish evening light on the ground in front of the door, which quickly faded into the shadows beyond. At the edge of the light lay an arm, bloodied and gray, separated at the shoulder from whatever corrupted it belonged to.

John frowned, calling for torches to light their way, already stepping inside the ruined fort, taking a closer look at the arm. Definitely corrupted, but it wasn't a sword that had severed the appendage, the flesh was rent and torn and there were bite marks on the forearm.

A beast? John thought as the men returned, three with torches. "Spread out, light any sconce you see. Be careful, whatever killed these corrupted might still be here."

As the light spread, John caught sight of other limbs and torsos, likely five bodies' worth of parts in total, but whatever did it was nowhere in sight. Tables and chairs, ruined by age or whatever conflict had gone down here, sat broken above a floor with that flowing, angular design common to the elves, and John noted its beauty briefly before looking up.

Balconies, draped with old and moth-eaten sigils of house and lord hung just below them. He called to a few of the men.

"Jones, Egan, Merac, check those balconies. The rest of you with me, we'll check the larder."

Yes sir's followed quickly as John walked to the end of the room, where a large and ornate chair sat, rotted to a near-husk of what it was. Behind the chair, in the side wall was a small arch, through which doubtlessly in ages past food and drink was brought to satisfy the patrons of this once-grand hall.

John bent his head, taking the nearest torch from his man, holding it in front as he descended the steps. A musty smell filled his nostrils as they finished, looking around the kitchen and food storage.

Well, any food is going to be long gone, he thought, running a hand on a stone table used to prepare food, noticing a few barrels sitting, undisturbed.

He smiled a little, turning to his three.

"Right, let's get out of here, meet up with the others."

They soon approached the dim light of the doorway leading out to the courtyard.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Shinsou realised very soon that any hope of finding food or water here was going to be slim, and with those fading hopes came a sudden feeling of vulnerability.

The area of Raiaera in which they were stationed was a desolate and devoid place of ruin. The fortress was an empty stone husk on the fringes of oblivion. The roads were still covered with some sort of toxic ash that filtrated into the already misty morning air, turning it rancid. Already, the pickets sent out by the Telgradian were complaining of breathing problems; an issue that no-one could really do anything about.

Empty but for a smattering of concrete scattered loosely in all directions, the courtyard below his rampart offered little in the way of supplies. On the west side, a spire that served as a watchtower was on the verge of collapsing inwards; as if it had given up the will to live. The surroundings outside of the walls seemed sullen, emanating a feeling of despair, of hopelessness. Indeed, if it were possible for a once thriving country to become the very definition of "forgotten", this would have been very much a fitting example.

This accursed place reminded Shinsou of the Telgradian civil war. He remembered how the shimmering white colours of the Council’s 25th Foot had once filled their followers with an almost palpable feeling of pride; of hope. Then, their banner torn and stained with blood, their rank and file soldiers battered and wounded, they staggered along like injured cattle in double file. The very flag itself became a burden on its bearers, who silently and secretly wished they could leave it at the nearest pile of smouldering ash to prevent themselves being spotted by the Jal Shey and having to once again endure another volley of scalding dark magic.

The Telgradian could envisage how the corrupt life forms that haunted this place would expose the fortress’s weaknesses. They would come hard and fast through the forest, flooding the fort’s limits and forming a rigid perimeter around the crumbling walls. They would keep coming ever forward upon a force already battered and demoralised by hunger and thirst.

It wasn’t long before John Cromwell returned from his search of the grounds and scrambled up the broken fortress wall. Silently, he stood beside two officers of his division as they looked over the plains with Shinsou on his right hand side. The first audible howling from the forest came, echoing over the mist and throughout the base.

"I take it you didn’t find a fully stocked pantry down there?" Shinsou asked.

John and the two officers said nothing. The giant knew as well as Shinsou what was going to happen without food. This band of men was ten times bigger than the force the Telgradian had commanded during the civil war; ten times more mouths to feed. As they gazed together into the fringes of the forests, the volume and density of the growls increased by the second, as if a wolves’ nest had been rudely disturbed.

It was frightening to behold.

"Something has riled the accursed." Shinsou pointed out to his silent officers. "The only advantage we have at the moment, if it is indeed an advantage, is that our pickets will give us an early warning of any attack."

He paused, thinking for a moment.

"We have to solve one problem at a time. If we do the maths, we solve one problem. Then we solve the next. If we solve enough problems, we get to go home. I’m going to start by seeing what I can do about purifying some water with my magic. If we have water, it halves the need for food."

Shinsou’s boots crunched on the broken plaster of the wall as his officers stood in silence, the quiet murmuring of the regiment below the only sound creeping out from the fortress’s broken form. He prayed for anything. A miracle would have done nicely, but here in this damned place, a miracle was going to be exactly that.