2E 398-445
Lia found a home within the hidden Trux sanctuary. Her
questions about what happened to the souls of the dead after they left the
physical world drove her into years of obsessive study.
Was there an afterlife awaiting those who died, or was it simply oblivion?
As she trained and studied within the sanctuary, she slowly became a novice
practitioner of magical runes. Despite the range of skills open to her once she
learned to read and construct arcane runes, she never strayed far from the
realm of the dead. The graveyard above the sanctuary provided suitable test
subjects for Lia’s morbid magical experiments. After years of practice, she was
able to reanimate the bodies of the dead. The rotting remains of the townsfolk
became her undead thralls. While she had found a sort of immortality, it was
only the body that persisted in this undead state, the soul, the consciousness
was still lost.
Lia’s skills with understanding and creating magical runes continued to improve
over the years. Once she had mastered reanimating the remains of the dead she
moved on to other necromantic arts. All of it was in search of a means of
immortality for herself. In totality Lia spent forty-seven-years living and
learning within the Trux sanctuary. By the time she was ready to leave the
haven and apply all she had learned she was far from the filthy frail woman
freezing in the autumn cold. Lia had become a powerful mage and necromancer. One
with the means of achieving her eternal existence. All she needed was the means
of paying the price that this immortality would cost.
It was time to return to Vita’s holy temple.
2E 445
Vita’s temple hadn’t changed much within the forty-nine-years
that Lia had been away. The vast gardens outside of the massive building were
still teaming with life. Various insects sang to each other while the sounds of
hidden nocturnal predators stalking their prey filled the cold night air. The
temple, more of a medical centre than most traditional places of worship, blended
in with the overgrown nature of the gardens. The walls were covered in ropey
vines that had been allowed to grow wild and free where they pleased since
cutting them would have been against the teachings of Vita.
Lia’s memories of her happy life within this temple had long since faded with
age. The only thing that persisted was a vague sense of safety by her mother’s
side. Vita taught these fools that life was a gift, but Lia knew better; life
was an unfair, random, and chaotic mess. It was time that she proved this
reality to those that lived within Vita’s temple.
Once the townsfolk of the nearby Oakenheart woke up in the morning they would
find their graveyards emptied of their deceased occupants. These corpses now
marched in an unorganized hoard behind Lia as she approached the temple in the
dead of night.
The old woman that led this morbid parade had changed a lot from the
bright-eyed little girl she had once been. Her skin had lost its once brown shade
and had taken on a sickly pallid colour with dark shadows under her eyes. A
greasy tangled mess of grey hair hung from her head, the rough, uneven, ends
that hung at her jawline were evidence of a hasty self-cut with little care for
appearances. In contrast to her messy face and hair, her robes looked almost
regal. They were constructed from a soft black fabric that absorbed what little
light there was reflected from the many moons that hung in the sky above her. This
gave the fabric an almost unnaturally dark appearance. The opening of the robes
hung diagonally, with a polished black metal edging along the seams of the
robe. The trousers were very much of the same design while the undershirt was a
simple linen thing. Her outfit was finished with steel-toe-capped boots made from
a black leather.
Runes carved painfully into Lia’s arms began to necrotise and decay as the
magic contained within them activated. The garden began to wilt away as she
approached with her undead army. She couldn’t help but glance towards the large
pond off to her right as she entered the grounds. The Lilypad’s started to
darken and curl into themselves while the surface of the water erupted into
chaos as the fish within the pond thrashed against the foul necromantic magic.
This scared the slumbering ducks that emerged from their hidden nooks and
crannies before attempting to fly away from the danger. A few made it far
enough away to escape the influence of Lia’s dark magic, but most failed to get
airborne or simply dropped from the sky shortly after leaving the ground. The
young child that she had once been hoped that Dina’s children had been among
those lucky enough to have escaped. As she continued to stare at the nostalgic
body of water the fish lost their futile battle against her magic and floated
lifelessly to the surface. By the time that Lia reached the entrance of the
temple the garden was little more than a mess of brown sludge and decaying
animal carcasses. The smell of rot hung sickly sweet in the air. This would be
an unwelcome smell within one of Vita’s temples. That thought made Lia smile.
Four of her undead thralls bashed in the doors to the temple. Only a few scared
healers were awake in the lobby. They were completely unprepared for such an
attack. Their pained screams filled the temple, alerting everyone to the
danger. Lia allowed her hoard to unleash itself upon her victims. Each healer,
monk, nun, or family that fell to her undead mob would soon stand back up and
join the army of the undead. Lia’s attack was a complete slaughter. Husbands
and fathers would fall only to rise once more to begin feasting on the families
they had died defending.
Lia made her way through the carnage towards the infirmary, towards the morgue,
where she could be at home with only the spiders and corpses for company. Her
undead army had been given free rein to massacre and feed on all but one person
within the temple. She waited for her loyal soldiers to bring her target to
her. Countless lives were lost while Lia sat and waited, playing with the now
rusty autopsy knife. Eventually the heavy wooden door was pushed open as an
undead reptilian woman pulled a struggling man into the room. Lia looked at the
thrall, this one was fresh, the blood dripping from her broken jaw was still a
healthy red colour. She wondered who this woman had once been. How had she
ended up so far from her homeland. It didn’t matter anymore; her soul had left
this physical realm. Perhaps it was now with Vita, but Lia doubted that very
much.
“Stop!” Lia’s voice was almost impossible to make out over the symphony of
death. Still, the thrall, able to always hear any command from its mistress,
complied and dropped the terrified man to the ground. “Wait by the door, make
sure no one else comes in or out.” The zombie complied, taking up position in
front of the heavy wooden door.
“Lia?” The scared man barely recognised her after so many years. It was
understandable, she barely recognised him. He had become an old man, with tired
looking skin and a grey, almost white beard.
“Hello Anton.” Her voice sounded hoarse as she tried to speak over the sounds
of butchery.
“Why are you doing this?” Anton’s voice sounded old and frail, but there was
something under the surface; pain, and grief.
“I’m so close to defeating death, to leaving that fear of absolute oblivion
behind, to becoming truly immortal. Nothing is free though, so I needed to
arrange the payment.” Lia held up the autopsy knife. Anton’s eyes dilated in
fear as he saw the familiar weapon.
“You don’t have to do this!”
“Unlike your Goddess, who shirks any and all that dare question her baseless
claims of eternal life, offered with no proof, no evidence, Trux offers the
truth. They offer more than just that, they offer evidence of the truth.”
“Please Lia, don’t do this! Stop this slaughter! Please!” Anton began to
ceaselessly beg for the lives of those within the temple as well as himself.
Eventually his pleas became a pathetic blubbering of nonsense. Lia continued
her explanation heedless of her brother’s breakdown.
“All Trux asks in return is payment in the form of human hearts. I thought
there was a certain poetry in giving the Deity of the dead the hearts of those
devoted to the Goddess of life. My thralls can manage everyone out there.” Lia
pointed the rusty end of her knife towards the heavy wooden door. “But you,
Anton, I felt I owed you a more personal goodbye.” Lia looked down at the pathetic
frail old man loudly sobbing to himself in fear. She looked at the thrall
standing ready by the door. “Hold him still.” The corpse lifted Anton into a
standing position as he thrashed against his captor. His struggles were
useless. The corpse would allow her muscles, skin, and bones to rip and break
before she released him. Lia used her knife to cut open her brother’s robes and
undershirt so that she could get to his bare chest. As she plunged the autopsy
knife into Anton’s chest and cut into his flesh the cacophony of screams and
dying entered the room. Her brother’s screams were forty-nine-years in the
making. His heart would make for a special offering.
By the time that the sun breached the horizon the temple of Vita had fallen
silent.
The screams of the dying had given way to the silence of the dead.
