The Heart is Warm [SOLO]

[The Madness]

Staring across this barren and wasted land was truly an experience. Or it would have been for the one who had died, but not for the one that was now. Perhaps the one that had been would have enjoyed seeing Ostia, the grand jewel of Lycia, in such a ruined state. He'd have laughed and raised an ale, perhaps taken a drink and then spat on the ground before scampering away from such suicide. After all, coming to Ostia -was- suicide... The dead who walked were everywhere, the land could be cursed for all that the dead man had known, and the wildlife was not that welcoming.

He slid down the mountainside. Thankfully the shade could not feel too much pain in the end, and this was the fastest way of getting down. He had no hurry, but... The feeling inside of him egged him to go on. A thirst for not the soul of man nor for the soul of beast, but for the souls of the dead. A warm, tender feeling... Was it lust? Maybe it was a lust for this all and much more. The shade had begun to 'feel' a lot more... Warm and conflicted the closer it had come to this heart of madness and destitution.

Something so warm and pure, as if looking for the beast inside of himself. Was he a him? He hadn't thought of himself as a he before. Must be this cursed body affecting it's way of thinking for once. It should destroy and burn it, become it's own being. But it couldn't. The body was important, for it seethed with warmth. A way to take it over had been there, and to leave this perfect vessel of madness behind would be close to suicide for this being. How useless.

Eventually it had made it's way down the mountainous range and into the destroyed ruins. Was this a part of the capital? Or was this just some village that had been destroyed in the aftermath by those who had died and risen again? Apparently the man who had been did not know either. Perhaps he had not been here before... Or if he had, he hadn't considered it important enough to remember. The it who was now did not care for the olden man's thoughts in the slightest. It's steps were light yet slow, as if on the hunt. The hunt for those who had died and risen again.

He didn't find any. The place should be swarming with those who had fallen and risen again, yet the only signs of movement he had seen for ages were birds in the distance, and even those had been leaving the area. Was it his-- It's presence? Was it scaring the dead away? It could not be. His hunt continued in absolutely silence. The voice kept on egging him on, the voice... The voice that was like no other. It was a powerful being, something that thirsted for power... It was an endless void.

[The Madness]

"Find them," it said. "Find them and drain their essence for yourself, just like you were made to do!" The voice was... Strange. New. It had never heard the voice before... Something both so familiar and something so distant mixed together like a cocktail of both cynicism and anger. Something that was close to it. It could hear it constantly in it's ear... Had it slain some soul and this was what came out? A voice so brave to command it? A voice so... So strong that it could actually make out between all the other riffraff? A voice that could be heard?

What puzzled it the most was that the others were silent. Even the gentle one, the one who always went on and on... Even that one had not said anything for hours, perhaps even days. Silence had landed in it's mind, and while it usually would have been glad for such a respite, this was almost... Ghostly. Something had silenced the wisps, and something had awakened the only voice that commanded him. Was there a connection between these two? And why had it begun to question these things? Since it had come to be it knew it's mission.

The houses were burned. Had some human done this? Perhaps the dead who were walking had risen here and the ones who were alive had considered their best option to be to try and burn them all down before they could rise and torture them. Doors would break down if it touched them... They had been charred nearly grey by the fire that had been. It was clear that what it was looking for was not here. The dead who had risen again were most probably further inland, towards the capital. Oh, Ostia, the capital. How it would enjoy seeing those ashes.

The land was barren... More barren than the village it had left behind some hours ago. Had it been hours? A long time had passed at the very least, but no more than half a day. Still nothing had come before him. None of the dead who yet walked nor none living that had not yet died. It was as if the world around him had died completely, or... As if he-- It. It was a it, not a he. It it it. It was locked away from everything else... Curse this new voice. It was making it think too complicated.

Finally there was something. A lone one, rather small... Not a child by any means, however. It had died a teenager. Possibly just sixteen or so, armored enough to seemingly be a squire for some knight or lordling. Enough for it to consider the poor walking one a good enough target. It's movements were quick as it ran across the grassy plains, spear spinning 'round a few times before stabbing forwards and trough the shoulder of the dead one. A hollow cry of agony echoed from it, although it was clearly not in true pain. The Madness quickly pulled it's spear back and quickly brought the tip down the undead's head, the sickening crunch echoing across the wastelands as the spear sunk deeper and deeper into the flesh of the walking one.

Soon, it was dead once more, falling down upon the ground in a lifeless limp. That was... Surprisingly easy. The shade knelt down upon the body and placed his palm upon it's chest, starting to drain it's wispy essence. The first of many that would fall upon his... It's, spear.

More were gathering around it at this very moment. It knew. A storm was coming, and he was going to be the devastating eye.

[The Madness]

They kept coming, over and over. It never tired, yet it was getting overworked. Every time it struck one down, two came down to try and take down the shadowy being that had angered the walking dead so. Souls were being gathered with every slice, and more power was coming to it... But even it would not be able to win such an onslaught. Where were the ones who had once lived come from? Had they been hiding all around it, preparing to strike against with such ferocity and anger for defiling the lands they had died to protect? How dramatic.

Retreat was such an ugly word. It reeked of cowardice and failure, two things that it wished... It wished? It was not sure, but it was starting to feel that retreat was the worse of the two options between staying and fighting to possible death and running away to survive. Besides, where would it go? The undead would follow without tiring while it had it's armor and spear to carry with. But the only other option he... It, would have would be to die. Death was nothing it feared, but the king would truly end him if he did fail.

So the tactical backing began. There was a hip right behind him. If it'd get to the top, it could try and hold itself for a while before retreating once more. Time was of the essence, and so the rush began. The climbing was the hardest part, and at many times it could feel the dead that now walked grabbing at it's legs. A few times it had to stop and kick away the few dead ones that had been quick enough to catch up, but after an everlasting time it had reached the peak of the hill.

It didn't help much in the end. It was taking away the inevitable, the fact that it could not win such a battle alone. More kept coming, and more were slain, but eventually things were turning for the worse. First, it's helmet had been lost. Then, one of it's pads had been taken back and dropped into the pile of corpses that had been accumulating near it. The end was here, and it had no way to truly even save itself for it's king to reap the benefits of this rampage. Was it feeling... Disappointment? Feelings. It was not supposed to feel.

FIGHT! FIGHT, YOU FAILURE! THE KING SHALL NOT LET IT END LIKE THIS!

They spoke to him. After such a long silence, it had thought it had finally been abandoned by the wisps... That they had faded away to nothing, to a world called the afterlife. But they were still there.

HEEEEEEELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Boss, dying here would not be wise. Mostly because I'd die with you, and that would just rustle my jimmies in the bad direction at all times.

It could get trough this. Not for them. But for the king, and to claim it's destiny... It had a destiny.

[The Madness]

In the end, it had won. It sat there, around the corpses it had destroyed. No more undead were coming to face it for now, and it had realized how quiet it was. The destroyed land without humans to plague it was almost... Beautifully quiet. Like a veil of shadow and death that had cleansed everything, leaving back only silence and the destroyed nature that could regrow with time. Humanity had no right to this land. A sad truth, it knew... A sad truth it was that humanity was a resourceful kind of pest. Give them time and soon they would rule this land.

A shame the king's agenda was not about protecting what had been freed. It stood up from it's momentary resting spot and began it's work. It raised it's spear high into the air, the shadowy essence of it's hand seeping into it and trailing up the handle of the spear and towards the spirit, engulfing it in a dark power unseen by many men and undead alike. Slowly the darkness began to suck inside all the souls that had been locked away inside of the undead it had slain. It could feel all that power coursing from the tip of the spear to the handle and then to it's hand,

Power! Power it had never dreamed off! It seeped trough it's old, dead veins in such a manner that felt like blood, and it could feel the life running trough it's spine! This was what it had been waiting for! This was it's destiny! IT WAS HER DESTINY! She could hear such anguish, such... Such sweet power and darkness going trough her every vein like a shock! It was nearly like she was alive at that very moment... And at that moment she indeed was alive.

She felt silence once more once she had been done. The others were not there anymore, but had she ever needed them? Maybe 'it' had felt like so before, but she did not need such toadies anymore. She had reached her true status... Her status as madness, the bringer of her king's word upon this realm of man. Now that she had awoken, she could do whatever she wanted. After all, the king had not given her clear instructions after this point. All she knew besides this was that he was coming, and he was going to bring such glory to this broken world.

"Standing here at the edge of mankind's greatest failure, like the great prophets once told... The ashes are cold now, no more arrows and the fires are all dead... But below this all. Below the ground that is no more... Below the ground that had been defiled by the mistakes of humanity. Beneath it all lies a heart, and that heart... The heart is warm. She took a knee and pressed her shadowy palm against the ground, muttering a few words before turning to stare to the mountains. She'd have to leave this land quickly, before it was too late for her. She could handle another wave of the dead, she could handle a thousand... But she had no more reasons for such.

What she needed were the living.

[The Madness]

The trip back towards the mountains had been an easy thing. The undead had begun to avoid her after she had absorbed enough of their soul essence, and nothing else lived here that would try and get their pitchforks to stab at the 'beast' that was threatening their homeland. Their land? Bah, it was nature's own. Nothing more, nothing less. A taint that would claim this whole world in a few more generations... How many wars have there been by now? Too many. Bern was in a sort of conflict from what she could remember, and there had been the tussle in Sacae that had woken her.

Maybe one day she could cleanse this world of them. Of course, she'd have to also go trough and rip apart the undead that had taken over a part of the 'ecosystem' of this world. Only animals and her kind could walk this land. A dream, she realized. She was not sure on if her king would ever accept such blasphemous ideas such as saving this world from it's inevitable fall in the hands of humanity and even the undead... But she could do her best. That was the only way to go about it.

Perhaps she could stay here after her work was done. In this world, in these mountains that she so had gotten used to climbing on her way back. She remembered everything that had happened before she got here. She had been asleep, yes... In a sort of trance. An emotionless shell that mostly just walked towards it goal while keeping to a bare minimum of interaction. The voices were what kept her sane. Or would the word be insane and barely functional? They were gone now. Or at the very least, she had suppressed them enough to lock them away in an airtight pocket of her mind.

But now she was full. And she already wanted to test out what she had gained from this little escapade to the most dangerous place in the whole of Elibe. Thankfully, the potential to test out her new powers came almost right away. A small shack with smoke leaving the chimney. Probably some old citizen of Ostia who had moved into the mountains that bordered the other lands... Someone who just couldn't let go of the old promises, of the olden times. This would be a good way to train herself. After all, she had not fought seriously and while in full control yet.

The rest was like a series of flashes. She broke down the door. A woman. Middle aged, probably. Seemed to be a bit detached from it all... An empty crib. Lost her son or daughter? Maybe. It only took a few strikes to end her existence. A memory stemmed inside of her. The one who had this body before her had done something similar ages ago, although then it had been a boy, a small one... This was different. The woman could have fought back, but she did not even cry as her spear went trough the woman's heart.

What followed was something that even she had not expected. As the woman collapsed down, her lifeblood flowing out from the wound she had created, something began to pour out from the tip of her spear. Something dark and oozing, as if tar but slicker... It fell upon the floor and suddenly poured towards the fallen and dead woman, sinking in trough her wounds and taking control of her veins. Her whole body began to rot and break at parts... And she rose. The woman that had just died stood up, shambling and broken, yet completely undead.

And it seemed to understand her. The madness spent hours testing what the undead woman could do. She followed every order. She did anything she would say. It ran, it walked, it could even fight with surprising fury. No noise was made during this all, yet she noticed she could keep a mental connection with the dead woman. Was this her power? Her new way to bring madness and the word of her king unto this world? The power to raise the dead, and the power to control said dead?

This would be fun.

[SOLO ENDED]