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located in Norr, a part of The Gift: Chapter Three, one of the many universes on RPG.

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The Paragon

The Imperian, Temp Camp


Wrath's eyes narrowed as he focused on the brutish hand clutching his shoulder. Something within him, another entity entirely, wanted to break Torga's wrist with a single deft movement. Maybe force the orc to a knee and raise his arm to break the entire limb. It was never a soldier's place to be so familiar with a superior officer, and there would be no brooking such action without making a proper example out of-

Wrath shook his head and banished such super-militant thoughts. With a visible effort, the general calmed himself and gently removed Torga from his person. Lounging on a dead tree nearby, Iridanias peeked at the exchange under half-lidded eyes.

"Be calm, private..." he allowed the sentence to trail off. Wrath realized it was Sid that knew the names of all of the new recruits. When was the last time he'd actually spoken to another soldier? "They will be fine. They are my Legion, and whatever is in that castle is nothing compared to the atrocities we have witnessed.

After a pair of guards escorted Torga from Wrath's presence, Beelzes appeared next to the concerned orc. The warlock peered at Torga over the rim of her spectacles and flashed a wicked smile. "You aren't crazy, you know." Beelzes shrugged and dragged Torga off behind a small cluster of tents. "So let's show our general that you are not some hot-headed greenskin, yeah?"

With a wave of her hand, a pentagram on the ground blossomed to life in a flash of fel green. Torga would find himself alone in the courtyard of the castle moments later. Surrounded by a half-dozen milling zombies.


The Castle


"Damn..." Xeron muttered, shaking his head in amazement. He'd spent years working for the Children of Fire and the White Lady Astara, a dragon that prides herself on inventive forms of torture and utilizing treachery to devastating effect. This, on the other hand, was absolutely vile. The dark elf was kneeling beside what was once a female, probably elf or maybe even orc. She was unrecognizable. Strips of skin flayed from her flesh were meticulously stuck to the walls behind the body, splaying out like some hideous splatter of paint. Muscle and tendon had been painstakingly shifted on the bone to make it appear as if the woman was meditating, although Xeron could tell by the dead slack that nearly every muscle in her body was severed. What truly amazed the dark elf, however, were the veins. Deep reds and blues crisscrossed the body in some sort of intricate lattice-formation that bespoke decades of practice at the artform that was torture. Possibly centuries.

She was still alive. One word kept repeating in her mind, like the incessant whine of a child, but oh so much darker.

Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease...

"Neira, watch the door a moment." Xeron pressed his fingertips to the exposed bone of the corpse-woman's forehead, eliciting a high-pitched keening from the immobile flesh. He closed his eyes. Flashes of red, steel, blind panic. A spark of courage that gave the woman--Kalin--enough resolve to hold the hallway alongside her companion in one final attempt to bar passage to...who? Xeron delved deeper in to the memory. He searched for something that would identify their assailant, something that would identify her cause. A name, a face, any-

"Please, captain." his voice was level and cool as ice. Just like always, she thought. Not even a hint of emotion at what he was about to do. Kalin raised her pike and leveled it at Nhil's chest. The deep human did not so much as flinch. "You do not want to prolong this. I am still rusty with necromancy, since adapting shamanism to the dark arts is...well, difficult. Come now, you will help more in death than you ever have in life-"

Kalin chose that moment to strike. The elf dove in with a quick thrust, center mass, that would have skewered any man, armor or not. She cried out in exultant triumph as the impact of metal on bone and flesh registered in her senses. That same exultation froze to dread when she looked right in to Nhil's eyes, eyes devoid of any life to shed. Nhil sighed and gently stroked Kalin's face, looking for all the world as if he was a parent gazing at a child who'd failed their studies. "You have made a poor decision, my dear."


The excrutiating pain that followed was more than enough to force Xeron out of Kalin's mind. The elf rattled out one final breath before expiring. Xeron clenched his jaw and swiftly stood, grabbing Neira by the arm and pulling her out of the room. Another sound was already emanating from the corpse, a volatile, hungry moan. A flick of his wrist sent a concussive bubble of force to fill the room. The moaning died abruptly with a sickening crunch. Forcing himself to utilize that much power within the dampening zone was exhausting, but if Xeron felt anything, it did not show. "We need to leave...Derenthi and his forces have passed through here, and he knew we were coming."

How, he could not say.


The rope was not even fraying. Salim was sure he would break his teeth before his bindings gave way. Instead, the mercenary took a deep breath and assessed the situation through calmer eyes. The crowd below him had thinned somewhat, most being drawn off by the sounds of a struggle somewhere further off. Only four remained now, but one was a ghoul. Ghouls, unlike zombies, retained a small measure of intelligence and physical memory, allowing them to wield rudimentary weapons with some mean level of skill. This one, clad in half-torn plate, swung a greatsword at Salim every few moments with a lazy pendulum-like motion. In time, Salim began to follow it, blocking out the moaning and clutching hands of the other three undead below. Back. Forth. One. Two. Right....left!

Salim slid down the wall a few inches and stuck out his wrists, praying to any and every power that he could keep at least one hand. By some serendipity, the blade passed cleanly between Salim's arms and left a sliced rope in its wake. It was then that he caught sight of the comely dark elf he'd bashed in the nethers some time ago. Salim gave her a mock salute and smiled crookedly at her, the smile of a man with very little reason to live. "A fool I may be, but a lucky fool I am."

Salim followed the arc of the sword after its next pass and shot down to the ground after it like an arrow. Two quick jabs and the ghoul was slammed against the wall. Salim caught the sword before it began to fall and swung back with an overhead slash. While it did not rend the zombies in twain like he would have hoped, it left the undead scored with wounds and stumbling back several paces. Which was good, considering how little breathing room Salim had. The mercenary fell in to a dance that lasted no more than a few seconds. Over and under, blade arcing in deliberate strikes that did damage as well as forced movement. Where Caine was colossal and strong, Salim was indomitable and graceful. By the end of the steel ballet, all four undead lay on the ground in tatters. Salim slumped, allowing the large weapon to go lax in his hands. He breathed heavily.

"So," he said, dark eyes staring up at Talae with a glint of grim humor, "Are you ready to leave? Or should we 'hang out' a bit longer?"


Ow. Ow. Ow.

"Dwarf's hairy ass, Koni..." Sid grumbled groggily, "Quit bouncin' so...fuggin' much...bleeding." that was not quite accurate. The bite in her shoulder was no longer bleeding, despite the wound delving down to the bone. It did, however, look several days infected already. Reddened flesh and pus were abundant, veins near the site of the wound were blackening with blood poisoning. Sid was already delirious with fever and had dropped her crossbow several corridors back. She was oblivious to the epic fight Kisikoni was raging and felt content to slowly drift off in to oblivion on his back. Each second brought the halfling's breathing down, her heart pumping with a little less vigor each passing moment.


"I know what you mean, Yan'vega." Thanaros roared in fury as he drew his arms across, bringing his weapon around in a powerful slash that drove back the growing throng of undead. Presumably the largest group, Mercy, Thanaros and their troops were attracting the most attention. Undead from all around the castle made their way towards the party. A party that was slowly dwindling in strength. Atala had gone down almost as soon as Thanaros linked up with Mercy. Their last medic, Gullas, disappeared under a small sea of gripping hands and gnawing jaws. When the group finally made it to the main entrance to the interior, only Thanaros, Mercy, and the other nightmarian of the group were left. Thanaros and the nightmarian, Jack, hustled to get the gates down and shut.

The pair were huffing in exhaustion by the time the iron-wrought gate was down. Thanaros stared at the tide of rotting flesh only an arms-length away and quickly roused himself. Jack did the same, the ant-nightmarian rubbing several nicks in his arc-shell where ghouls and zombies had tried to bite him.

"You'd think they'd try a shell-cracker..." Jack was cut off by Thanaros' quizzical look. The nightmarian raised his palms helplessly. "You know, like how you eat shellfish? They should...captain Beelzes told me to say..." Jack grew silent and shook his head. Thanaros creased his brow and confusion before joining Mercy and beginning to head down the hallway. The sounds of fighting began to intensify almost immediately.


The Civil

The Imperian


Take the revenant job, he'd said. It pays well and you don't have to do any fighting, he'd said. For the first time in her life, Quwall was cursing her father's name. The man was pleasant enough, with a nose for cushy jobs, but never in her life did Quwall expect her father's advice to land her in the middle of a battle with the dragon cultists. Wiping out one of their supply villages was one thing, but engaging them in battle was another entirely. 'Use the fruits of your enemies to nourish your army.' A basic tenant of the Civil, one that she'd heard the general Nhil say in person. That was a lesson she took to heart.

When the young Quwall discovered her talent for rising necromancy, she was elated to learn that she could make her most fervent wartime belief quite literal. By slaying local populations, Quwall and her fellow risers could create undead fighting forces to bolster the armies of the Civil. The near-mindless warriors could even to labor, by pulling carts and holding supplies and spoils of war.

Now, as these beasts tore in to her creations, Quwall felt a surge of terror and rage. "Filthy cultists!"

Lightning as black as the Burning Dark arced from the blonde woman's fingertips. Dresinil cried out in pain. Although he had managed to avoid the necrotic shock, the void light from the lightning seared his retinas and left burning afterimages of the world murkily drifting across his vision. Emboldened by her partial success, Quwall launched another round of dark sparks that stabbed into the elf dead on. Dresinil did not cry out this time, but merely sank to his knees. His flesh began to wither and gray at a rapid pace, the life being drained from him with alarming speed. That was what she could do, Quwall thought, elation welling up in her like a broken dam. Had she known that necromancy was such a potent weapon directly as it was indirect, she would have been posted for a more active duty months ago!

Before Quwall could orient on another target, however, a new form stepped on to the scene, somehow seeming to fade in from somewhere beyond sight. The newcomer placed a delicate hand on Dresinil's forehead. Color returned to the elf's flesh and his muscles grew taught with the sudden burst of blood and energy accompanying the holy magic. Dresinil's eyes snapped open, and the elvish warrior sprang back up with both weapons in hand and charged Quwall with a battle cry on his lips. Carmen remained where she was, using her crimson robe to wipe away a bit of Dresinil's blood on her hand. Elves could be so very messy.

Quwall, in her panic, completely forgot every spell in her mind and simply threw up her arms as if that would stop the bite of an axe. She screamed. "Knossus!"


There was someone with the same idea as Jivven. It was not Ouran, for that dark elf was cutting in to the growing undead horde with great sweeping strikes. This particular darkling was gaunt to the extreme, and stared with eyes to wide for his skull. The bony creature licked its lips with a swollen black tongue, cutting itself on needle-sharp teeth. It watched Jivven with interest. Dimly, Dark was aware that it had been something like Jivven once. Cunning. Handsome. Lively. Swift.

No...no, it thought with a grimace. It was wrong. No...

The creature melted in to the shadows of the building and reappeared two paces to Jivven's left. An emaciated revenant with claws as long as daggers and just as sharp, the beast lunged at Jivven with terrifying speed. It was still swift. Dark remembered now.


A sudden shriek pierced the dark skies, followed by a rush of slapping sounds. Shasarra plummeted from the sky in a bloody heap, smashing in to the roof of a small hovel not too far below. Above her, where she had been flying moments previous, a humming pack of animals winger around in a swarm. Birds, bees, hawks, bats, flies--many flies, roved above the battlefield in a semi-coherent mass. The result of creatures feeding off of death-tainted undead, the swarm had been shadowing the Civil troops for some weeks now. As Shasarra's multitude of stings and small gouges would attest to, the creatures were far more deadly in death than in life.

The undead swarm's consciousness flickered in the general direction of Zulii, marking the rustle of feathers as a sign of threat. It dove for her and summarily engulfed the witch doctor in a black mass of stinges, scratches and bites not unlike a swarm of carnivorous jungle fish.