Sepulcrum

Black Desert

The monster made a wet suckling sound as the mirror clean Hydragareum sword withdrew from its monstrous mass, and I began my free fall. Hot wind rushed into the eye slits of my silver helm, the air was filled with agonizing screams of...of...humans! But how! There should be no humans in Vak
'rall! Yet there was, hundreds of them falling in tandem with me. There skin black, twisted, and pulled tight against there bones. There early generation dragged down here with the Malum, to be tormented, and used as food for them, and there war machine, then the dead are used to build more of the monster of old. A horrible fate.

But emperor forgive me, I needed one of them. I fell towards one of the mangled bodies, and grabbed hold, both of us began spinning wildly, and without control. The scrawny man fought me with all his might,  screaming incoherently, having never lerned a language. I unsheathed the crystal dagger at my side. The man's spindly twisted hands attempted to find purchase through my helm.

But before he could my blade cut into his stomach, and up to his ribs. His innards sloped out of his body, and acted as if they were in water from the fall. Blood rushed out of him like freed convicts, and I willed it to move. The man gave off a last gurgling exhale as he left the material, and his blood whirled around me forming a hard shield on one side and a jel on my side of it.

I smashed into the ground sending dark earth flying. A loud POW! Followed, it deafened me as the man I had gutted exploded when he hit the ground. My ribs felt as if they where crushed in the fall, but I could breath fine even though it hurt. They were more then likely fractured rather then broken.

It took me some seconds to recover from the ringing in my ears and the pain in my chest. I stood to take a look at the poor man. It was terrible, nothing but a bloody pulp was left of the poor fellow I had to murder to save myself.I can't save them all, and even if I sealed the sword it would not save this emperor forsaken place.

I looked around the black desert, darkness filled the sky's, and dry cracked lava covered land stretched for as far as I could see. The sticky smell of burning vomit wafted everywhere, other damned people wandered. But off in the far distance, maybe 250 leagues away were massive pylons as large around as a castle, rising and falling at a slow steady pace. By the sword look at them, it would take decades to build just one, but they went for as far as I could see, curving in what I assumed to be a massive circle, that I could not see the end of. The circles diameter must be as big as 40 nations.

I could not fathom what they would be for other than to give the aura of shear massiveness. I tore my eyes from the slowly rising towers of black iron and took a moment to think. It would take me days to reach one of those towers if not a week or more. I could survive without food and water longer then normal humans, but i had only descended 2 leagues by my guess. Vak'rall was said to be at lest 340 leagues deep. I had not the time for a trek that long without descending and my blood run would not carry me fast enough or for long enough. What was I to do.

The damned humans roamed the black cracked desert aimlessly, some grouping up finding comfort in number. They were wrong. I had begun my trek there on foot the silvery steel a stark contrast of the obsidian sands. I tried my best to avoid the groups of damned as i could, for all i knew they were hungry enough to eat me and my armor. Until later i had to stop, a hoard of them blocking my path to the towers of iron. I sat crossed legged with my mirror sword in my lap watching them. I saw movement, 3 low an fast moving shades. I thought it a trick of my eyes at first this place could do that to a man. But it was not. The shades i thought no bigger then a small animal burst forth from the ground, slinging dirt and damned alike.  They immanently scattered in unnamed horror. form this distance i could not tell what exactly they looked like but i could see arms some curving and flaying wildly, others hard and angular moving in lightning spear movements. The tentacles would smash into the damned an leave them as bloody smears in the dark sand, the other mechanical arms bursting through the frail chests of the unfortunate, lungs and ribs being smashed open. The one thing calming dozen in seconds. What came next was worse. With the horde of bodies routed and rushing off in a single direction from the calculated attack of the monstrosity the other two revealed themselves. Bursting from the ground like a tic being smashed they flailed and speared wildly, smashing and spearing through the horde of  humanity long lost.