Terrible events on the outer settlement near pathway.

[Chee]

In the small settlement near pathway the small farming community has lived relatively well. Near enough to pathway to benefit from its patrols but far enough away to avoid the higher cost of living so close to the military and magic protection of pathways defences. The worst they have had to deal with in recent years is mild bandit problems and the usual wild animals that can threaten their live stock.

It is in this sleepy little community of about thirty people who slumber so soundly, the two cattle herders who where luckless enough to be assigned to watching the livestock this night stand watch in the makeshift shelter that overlooks the fields.
The cool winters air freezes their breath as they try to distract themselves from the bone shattering cold as it bites their warm flesh.
‘By the harrans nipples its cold out here tonight.’ Stan Burrowman, the larger and stocker of the two stamps his feet in a vain attempt to get some feeling back into them. He hated the night shift, especially in the winter. It was dark early, not to mention the bitter cold. There were more predators hungry for a meal, and that meal didn’t always have to be the live stock either. Those wolfs would quite happily take down a full grown adult if they were hungry enough. He held out his hands next to the single lantern that hung between the two of them, trying to gain a little of the pitiful warmth it gave out.

Looking over at his friend leaning against the wooden post of the small shack with his eyes closed, he gave a scowl and an unnecessary loud cough. The damn man could fall asleep standing up. It’s a trick he’d of loved to learn, but someone had to keep an eye on the cattle so if he had to suffer doing it, so could this lay-about.
'HEY! Wake up you sorry son of a beggar. If I an’t getting any sleep, neither are you...'
A smile slowly spread across his friends face, still with his eyes shut.
I assure you my good friend, I am quite awake. You need not fear you are alone.
Raising a curious eyebrow Stan looks over at his friend again. It wasn’t like him to smile while out in the freezing cold in the middle of the night. Come to think of it, he’d never heard him speak without slurring his words and fitting in half a dozen swears into each sentence either.
'Errrr... Are you alright mate?'
A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature sent its icily shards right into Stans core as very slowly, his friend moved away from the post and leaned forward right into the lamp light, lighting his face on one side and casting the other in deep shadow.

Very slowly, his eyes opened and Stan looked into them with fear. They were not the usual happy-go-lucky friendly eyes he was used to. They were cruel, calculating, haunting. They looked right at you piercing your flesh and looking right into your very soul. The eye in the light looked normal enough but now, terror gripping him as realisation came over him he could see the eye that was concealed in the darkness glowed a murderous blood red. The face of his old friend twisted into a terrible smile as he spoke.

Alright? I could say I’ve never been better. Tell me my friend.... Have you considered Death as an option?

...........................................................................................................................................

The morning sun rises in the blood red sky, shining down on a new day. The sunlight pierces the mist and smoke in the freezing air of morning. The farmstead stands now as nothing more than blackened ruins smoking in the Moring mist. No birds sing. The usual lively morning bustle of many farm workers is unheard. No living thing makes a sound except for a single voice... It cries.

It is a Childs voice. Calling out, in terrible sadness she cries. Blood soaked and bleeding, she cries. In desperate terror and pitiful despair, standing in the devastation of burnt out homes and blood soaked pavement, she cries, and looks with unrelenting sadness upon the soul wrenching scene before her.

A woman is tied by a leash to part of a half burn post. Her twisted features turn her once beautiful face into a dark feral and hateful apparition of death. Her skin stretched across her bones and her once soft hands that had tucked the little girl who watches into bed at night, now turned into fearful murderous claws. The sickening sound of tearing flesh is joined by the terrible crunching of bone as the restrained ghoul feast upon the body bellow it. The hansom features of the farm hand are torn and raked by the savage hunger of the ghoul. The little girl, paralysis by fear and remorse can do nothing but watch as her father is consumed.

Through desperate tears the girl screams at the ghoul, her voice a shriek in the deathly silent morning air.
Mummy!... MuMMY!! Please! Please STOP!! Oh God PLEASE STOP!
The ghoul looks up from its grotesque meal and snarls at the girl, then leaps at her full of unrestrained fury. Claws flying and jaws snapping the girl screams and backs up as the leash on the post holds back the snapping jaws of death. The girl stares in horror as the ghoul fights the rope holding it back. The weakening wood cracks and splinters under the relentless jerking on the leash.

She turns and runs. Tears in her eyes, terror drives her forward. The sounds of snarling and finally breaking wood sends fear driving though her heart like a wooden stake. She runs like she has never run before, torn and bloody night dress blowing in the wind she flees for her life...


... she almost made it to the road before her mother catches up...

[Chaos_dwarf]

Marcus, travelling out of Pathway on his way to Serke Kemi, comes across the scene. He mutters to himself, "Blessed Hope, what has happened here?"

((OOC, what do I see?))

**Marcus**

[Chee]

The smell of burning wood is pungent with the stench of incinerated flesh. The sickly taste of freshly spill blood taints the air as Marcus approaches the rising smoke. In the distance before his arrival there was the faintest hint of a voice hidden by the trees but now only the blood chilling silence fills the air. A terrible, heavy ‘world ending’ hush as if the universe had held its breath in sheer terror of what it had witnessed.

Marcus steps into the next clearing allowing him to see the sickening, bloody devastation that is all that is left of the farm stead. A grim and cruel site, bodies lie scattered around, the fields of cattle have not only been killed but torn to pieces with limbs and organs flung everywhere. A true picture of unnecessary violence is before him. But as terrible as the scene is, his attention is drawn to that which is far closer to him. A little girl, lying face up, her pretty little face frozen in a terrible, horrified scream of anguish. The torso has been ripped in two, blood and guts smeared across the floor are a testament to the heart wrenching death she must have suffered. Upon the lower end of the corps, a ghoulish woman tears into the still warm and dripping flesh, consuming the meat with bestial savagery. Next to the other half of the body, kneeling next to her head, a large skeletal form bends down and with gentle care and grace, takes out a small bottle. Putting the bottle to the cheek of the child, he catches the remaining tears that leak out in her final moments. Tears of the innocent. Tears of unrelenting sadness. Tears that in this moment, encapsulate all the words of grief, fear, despair and remorse that she cannot say.
The four other undead that stand nearby (2x skels 2x wraiths) have turned to face Marcus, if they could look surprise... they would.

[dainul]

Off to one side from the gathered undead, those listening quite carefully might hear slow footfalls with no visible source. They sound to be circling around toward Marcus.

((Invisibility, for the record.))

[Chaos_dwarf]

Marcus looks aghast at the horrific scene before him. A single tear runs down his left cheek before he is able to master himself once again.

"Blessed Sweet Lady Hope ... ", he mutters, before looking up to regard the undead before him. He bellows at them, "For the crime of slaying innocents and conjuring undead, thou art all enemies of Hope! I abjure thee in her name!"

Without a second's pause, Marcus sprints forwards, holds out his hands, ((OOC: summon hammer)), and his hammer appears therein. As he nears the first undead, he summons his will and leaps high into the air ((OOC: Heroic Leap)), before coming crashing down on the ghoul. Spinning to face the two skeleton like creatures, Marcus strikes the skull of one and then smashes into the other with a reverse stroke.

Finally, he turns to address the ghoul again, incanting swiftly:
"This is the time and this is the place,
O Lady of Hope, grant me thy grace,
To destroy this evil, with all of my might,
I, the instrument of thy will, call upon this one a HOLY SMITE!"

From the heavens a searing light erupts, striking the ghoul head first. The ghoul screams silently as its flesh is seared, before it's head explodes, popping like a ripe melon being struck at high velocity by a rock.

Marcus turns to face the last undead, panting from the exertion of the last few seconds. Snarling, biting off each word, Marcus growls "Leave her be, abomination, and face me!"

Marcus makes ready for whatever is about to happen, silently praying, "Blessed Hope, into thy hands I commit my spirit - do with me as thou wilt."

**Marcus**

[dainul]

As Marcus dispatches the majority of the undead, the footsteps move quietly and carefully towards the girl and skeleton, then away again. Then from where they have stopped, a voice starts sounding.

"May the Web Breaker see that which is to be broken. Let the Pattern Binder forsake the weaves of magic in this being. May the Web Breaker see that which is to be broken..."

((Sense Power 3 on the skelly and the bottle, then aiming a dispell at an appropriate level to remove the contingency or contingency other I'm expecting to see there.))

[Edd]

Mod: Can we pause the action here please. Chee has statted these undead - as he's used certain powers to make them, meaning it should not be presumed that Marcus can destroy them in one hit each. If no-one posts untill Chee has got back to us, as older posts may have to be edited.

[Chee]

Marcus’s swings with righteous fury as he strike the undead, the splintered remains of the ghoul fly through the air as the shattered bone fragments scatter like a broken mirror in the mornings light. In the split second Marcus pauses to face the final skeleton he feels something is wrong. Sheer darkness erupts from the places he struck upon the skeletons. In the same instance, Marcus feels the full force of his own hammer blows strike him, first in the skull, then cracking him in the groin, the full weight of his blows behind the invisible force striking him.
The moment passes and the darkness dissipate. Both skeletons appear completely unharmed and now both raise their shields and swords to face Marcus.

The two wraiths stand silently and watch as Marcus makes an impressive mess of the innocent woman’s coups who was unfortunate enough to be raised as a ghoul. There impassive, featureless faces could not show the smiles they would be wearing at this gory display.

The Final skeleton, adorned in black and finished collecting the tears, stands up slowly and unconcerned. Turning to Marcus now his skeletal features displaying the only emotion they can, a giant toothy grin.

Well wouldn’t you know it... As always, where there is trouble, there will be heroes to cause a bit more. Don’t worry, you can do what you like with this lot now, I’m finished here.

It wasn’t easy serving the dark lord. You couldn’t even raid a simple farmstead these days without someone getting upset or walking in on you half way through. And minions where always so damn incompetent. They would mess things up faster than you could say ‘blood bath’ and not too even get started on the whole ‘let me go and ill betray me master for you’ deal they ALWAYS went for. It just felt so hard sometimes, like the whole world was against you. All these heroes, the churches of light, the laws of the land, they all couldn’t just stay still and let death take its course. They always made things so unnecessary and complicated.

Turning to leave, lost in his own musings the skeleton moves away from Marcus and then stops. An idea creeps into his head. Dark and sinister, like a goblin slipping into your bedroom at night the idea presents itself. Turning back it address’s Marcus.

Hum... Marcus wasn’t it? Yes I remember you. Full of so much fire. Tell me Marcus....

....Have you considered Death as an Option?

*One of the wraiths is looking round towards the general direction of the invisible invoking magic. Looking curious at the sound without an apparent source..*

[Blue mage]

A little way away, just in sight of the terrible, terrible events that have taken place, a black clad figure, with a huge black shield, black helmet covering most of the head, watches the destruction and death. Quarin be praised, he thought to himself, over and over. He had greatly wronged his lord once before, now was a chance to make up for his sins.
Klarik smiled and began walking down the hill at a steady pace, drawing his blade and chanting Quarins name in both prayer and magic...

((Starting to feel death magic coming from not so far away))

[Chee]

At the approach of the new comer the two wraiths look at the robed skeleton. Their body language clearly asking for a command of what to do next. One points vaguely over towards the quiet sound of someone casting now being mostly drowned out by the loud chanting of the black clad figure.
In a rasping death rattle of a voice the two wraiths speak in unison..

Yyyyourr Orders?

[Chaos_dwarf]

Marcus simply drops unconscious; the weight of his own blows is too much for him to handle without his armour.

((OOC: apologies Chee, I didn't know how stuff like this worked on the forums, I just made it up as I went along. Very sorry))

**Marcus**

[dainul]

The incanting fades away as Marcus drops, and quiet footsteps may be heard by those listening moving towards his unconscious body.

[Chee]

Feeling somewhat foolish, now turning around and noticing he had been talking to himself and not realising Marcus as on the floor already, the skeleton pauses then address’s his fellow undead.

You two*he points at the wraiths* Find out who or what that noise is.
You two *pointing at the skeletons* Pick up our new guest. Ive had an idea... yes, he will do nicely.

The robed skeleton walks casually over to Marcus’s bleeding body and touches it. In an instance, Marcus becomes made of stone. He then turns to the approaching black clad, singing armoured man.

And who might you be to happen across this place singing the name of the god of death?

*The two wraiths walk slowly and zigzag around trying to find where the voice that was there only a moment to has got to.*

[Chaos_dwarf]

((OOC: Regeneration activated))

Marcus moans in pain at the skeleton's cold touch, before freezing.

**Marcus**

[dainul]

The unknown person avoids the semi-random movements of the skeletons and the footsteps recede for anyone listening to them. After a few more moments, there can be heard a muffled incantation from inside one of the ruined buildings.

"This one calls the Pattern Binder to show the paths, the links between. This one calls the Web Breaker to open the path to tread. This one calls on the Thread Spinner to fill the path once trod. This one calls upon the three that it may tread its path."

And then, silence.