(Phantasia) Ghosts of Blacklake

Part 1.

Ayan's journey after his release from the cold, unwelcoming dungeons guided him through the moored regions of north-east Phantasia. The ground was soft and mossy with plucks of heather-grass growing in small bunches, wild reeds and blackberry-bushes growing on and around what was once a path and shallow puddles of mud, wherein the hooves of Ayan's horse Bayo continuously sounded tsumd-tsumd-tsumd, with nobody around to hear it but Ayan and the horse himself. The air was pale and damp. White-grey clouds hung lazily over the sun. All of the sky seemed to be an array of clouds. The ground, the sky and the overall mood of this place gave it an empty, forgotten ambience. 

Ayan searched for a place to sleep, a place that was better than a dirty bale of hay against cold and grimy stone, tied up in chains. Ayan's wrists felt a tingle over them for having lost the feeling of their shackles. A relief, first and foremost, but also cold. There were scars on the wrists. 

"No place to spend the night." Sighed Ayan to Bayo, who sluggishly kept walking forwards through the moors. Tsumd-tsumd-tsumd, went his hooves through the puddles, with no other noise around. Not even one bird sounded here, and not even the wind blew. This place was as if abandoned by even the elements themselves. 

Nevertheless Ayan felt a strange presence of... Something. Scattered around these moors were long, wooden poles, sticking out of the ground, with no indication how or why. Ayan wondered what these were, especially in a place like this. Did they have some religious meaning, perhaps? Or were they a beacon towards civilisation? That would be grand. The thought of it made him smile. 

Eventually the two came to a large, open field in the moorland, surrounded by thin trees. Not a familiar sight, but a welcome one nonetheless. The trees bore no fruit but they did provide shelter, with a thin roof of leaves growing above the tree like from the cup of a goblet. It seemed that these were used for shelter often, judging by what seemed to be the remains of a campfire underneath one of the thin trees. The fire still smouldered, which Ayan found a little odd. He wondered where the occupant went, but no trace was to be found. 

There was one thing even more off-putting for him, one very significant thing that made him doubt if he should even be here at all. And that thing was the large, still, pure-black lake, in the middle of the field. 

But Ayan was tired after his long trek, and so was Bayo. Against keener judgement and a lack of any legit place to stay otherwise, Ayan made their camp against the tree with the fire underneath. He tied Bayo to the tree, and Bayo went on to graze the moss and grass, as far away from the black lake as he could. "Good idea, boy." Ayan laughed, as he tried to re-kindle the smouldering fire with some tinder-fungus he had left. He could roast some food on it later. 

A blanket lay lonely against the tree. It was a sturdy, thick blanket, perfect for keeping out the cold damp weather in the moorlands. It looked abandoned the way it was. It even had a marking of the previous owner on it, still with the lines and curves of how they'd sat down here. Ayan only had to look at the blanket and then at the night-turning sky to know what he had to do with the thing next. 

"Thank you, whoever left this behind. Now I'm not cold anymore." He wrapped himself in the itchy thick thing while he got busy roasting some raw food on a stick, above the glowing ash of the fire. Bayo slept, standing, as most horses do. The night above the moors fell quicker than expected. From the distance, a lonely owl cried out. A murder of crows began cawing not to far away from there. Ayan enjoyed those sounds. He grew up with them, and they made the night feel far less empty. He leaned his back against the tree and ate his warm food while the remains of his fire danced in the darkening night. He breathed in the cold air and the rusty smell of burning wood. No stars were out, as the clouds were above them still. Unwelcoming and cold as this place was, it still beat the cramped smelly dungeons he was still stuck in barely two days ago. Ayan felt alive.

He smiled during his entire meal, feeling very satisfied, and soon after nuzzled himself to sleep. It was a sleep that did not last long. The night was silent once more, and after a short while a filthy, muddy, simmering stench drifted through the air, filling it, and it burned Ayan's nostrils so much that he jolted back up, eyes watering. The ground rumbled. Ayan scrambled himself up, wiped the tears out of his eyes and hastily grabbed all his stuff together. His sword, his crossbow, his knapsack, if he could grab the fire he would do that too. This horrid stench awakened a feral scavenge-and-flee response in him. The fire hadn't even fully gone out yet, he managed to notice. Quivering from the cold, Ayan tied the two ends of the blanket together, and hung the thing over his shoulders. He unsheathed his rusty, trusty sword. Bayo had awoken from the rumbling, and trampled the grounds with anticipation and fear. He fumed and snorted and whinnied. Something on these grounds was freaking him out. "Ssssssshhh." Ayan hushed, trying to calm down his horse. But when he turned back around, he saw exactly what was scaring his horse so much.

From the distant black lake, slowly, rumbling and creaking, an entire village appeared. A village built on poles. Rotting, broken poles, barely supporting the rotting, broken houses they stood under. The entire thing arose from the waters as if it was nothing, and the black-as-coal waters bubbled and brewed and splattered apart on the poles and the buildings. But that was far from all that happened. 

From the slime on the floor of the village on poles, people appeared. They just crawled upwards, from nothing except the black tar-like substance spread out like marmite with rotted clumps. But not even their appearance seemed to be anything people-like. They weren't people. Not any longer. From their many slimy throats sounded a a low, blear bellow, and many white eyes stared lifelessly at the world, without real, conscious vision. They were undead. Ayan softly stepped back, trying not to alarm them. He shivered over his entire body despite the blanket he now clenched against himself with one hand. Something warm slowly streamed down his legs.  Bayo reared against his restraints and whinnied louder than ever. Ayan's gaze remained on the dark, rotted village, however. With gaping mouth he looked at the undead people. 

One of the villagers stood out though, even more so than an undead already would. Where the other undead were hunched-over, this one stood up straight. The figure had his arms tightly to his body, and seemed to fully be in control of his movements, whereas the other undead were but a slumping, groaning mess. This one was silent. Dead- silent. He had a wicked grin of rotted black teeth cracked on his leathery dripping skin, and pale-white long hair that seemed to stick to his face and what-once-were his clothes, a long robe. And his eyes... They shone red as bloodied daggers in the light of the pale moon. The eyes seemed to be stabbing straight into his soul, filling him with fear. With insecurity. With the looming silence of death. Ayan's legs started shaking, as if he wanted to leave but the red eyes, burning like the fires of the underworld, tried keeping him in place. The black water of the lake bubbled and splashed against the rotting wood, and a large splotch of it blocked Ayan's sight of the red eyes. Ayan violently shook his head to get those deadly eyes out of him, threw his stuff on Bayo, jumped into the saddle, cut loose the reins because untying it would be wasting precious seconds of life, and got out of here on his panicking horse as fast as they could. Southwards, the opposite way they came. He cried out of pure fear, and sweated and heaved and if he could scream now, he most definitely would. But the fear had robbed him of his voice. Far behind him, the undead of the black lake moaned. And among them, very faintly, he heard the harrowing, heartrending laugh of who Ayan only could figure was the undead with the long white hair and those red, deadly eyes... The night was long, still without stars. 

Void of any breath Ayan and Bayo arrived at a small, dingy tavern built on a mound. He quickly stabled Bayo, who was still jumpy from the whole experience, and then Ayan stumbled to the entrance and banged on the door as loud as he could, with the front of his boots stuck in the dark sand, leaning on one hand and banging the door with the other. When it finally opened, he fell to his knees, crying. The bar-maid who'd opened the door only seemed very surprised.