Path of the Necromancer - FACTION WARS

Chapter 7.3 - The Spirit Realm

The calendar charted the course of the week that followed. A tense calm that oppressed the city. A calm that awaited the storm that none could see, yet knew loomed shy of the horizon. Citizens scuttled from hovel to house, afraid of a judgemental sun. Guards flinched at every whisper or creak. Ur became a city of living ghosts.

Suspicion premeditated prejudice. Civil duty went unanswered. Civility was fraucus, barely held firm by the ties of family.

On the seventh day the alarm bells sounded. Calls to arms would have been answered - even in the state of paranoia - if the battles were not already within the streets. Corners became ambushes; alleyways - battlefields.

The fall started slowly, as such momentous things tended to do. A fire, a mugging... then the killing. Temples, a sanctum many believed would protect them, infused marble that shone so brilliantly even in the darkness, was spattered in the rust red of dried life. Monuments were destroyed and buildings sacked. Pinnacles of power and statues of the Gods were desecrated or torn down. Wails of children, the screams of women created the soundtrack to match the stench of piss and the taste of dust and grit between the teeth. Dark clouds descended from the heavens to swirl in the streets, clawing at the exposed flesh of any who were unlucky.

The first places hit came from inside the city as those with power were killed, drained or captured. The corruption and darkness that enveloped the city billowed like a smog, clogging the sight and dulling the senses as the people fell deeper into depravity, gleefully killing and raping without a backward glance or thought. Those that embraced it were soon slinging fire and lightning, continuing to destroy and siphon as the promise of power gloated.

The tranquility of the city became a storm as wind and water churned the dusty landscape into a fervor. The rallying din of the bells were enveloped as thunder broke, turning the sky into a soup of light and sound. Flame in streaks of green and red slamming into the ground, battling one another as each side desperately sought to overpower the other. The city was under siege, those inside battering the walls in an attempt to escape.

The calendar recorded it all with a dispassion reserved for the creatures accustomed to killing. Singular cries swelled into miasmas of despair. A King felt it all. Tears slid from glassy eyes as the shrieks of the hopeless crumbled to their knees.

'I'm sorry,' Felt hollow in light of the shadows coming to claim them.

Glassy eyes though, didn't mean the clouding of his vision. While he ignored the room around him, the scarpering servants chittering like headless chickens. His eyes were trained on the largest collection of Darkness towering above the outer walls. A Titan. Stooped shoulders rolling on a hunched back; it's knuckles tilling the ground. Wisps of red whipped in the wind, gathering up the dead particles of sand that - footsteps before - were lush with life.

Their eyes met. His, a pained green streaked with tears - the creature's, an iridescent clouded white in a translucent skull.

Men and women alike fled from the construct of chaos. The defenders were swept aside like ants, their bodies broken, their dessicated husks lying distended and splintered wherever they fell... Then they lurched again. The Titans stench was that of a corpse left to bloat in the shallow waters of a swamp. It resembled one in many ways. it's barrel chest splitting its outer casing, tattered skin dangling from erant bone.

A lightning bolt punctured a writhing pustule in the creature's abdomen. The newfound Mage had little time to express her surprise at the revelation that she could cast magic. The puss that slaughed free was of a consistency found only in the bilge of a ship.

Unperturbed, the Titan continued to lurch towards the city centre, destroying walls and houses with a black fire that ate down to the bedrock. The King watched as chasms cracked the city apart.