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Hello All!  Lord Baldrith here with an awesome story by Lich Lord Ravicus called Shardfall and the Village of the Damned.  Very dark and excellent story!

Here is the text:

Background Music: Alexandr Zhelanov Pioneers of the Future https://soundcloud.com/alexandr-zhelanov and Gichco by Shinsei

Shardfall and the Village of the Damned by Lich Lord Ravicus Domdred

Ravicus glanced with a steel cold look over the Shard covered plains. as he looked on, the images flood through his mind, of what has been done, and what yet has to be done……

The memoirs of his family have passed from generation to generation in a blood covered grimoire made of flesh that had been rendered and stretched to cover the insidious pages. The grimoire talks of how the Shardfall was the ruin of the land, depriving the villagers of bird and beast. Nothing grew, not grain nor grass. Trees where non existent after the pummeling of the shards.

It is this that leads to the blight that has perpetuated the present circumstances. After the loss of food, be it flora or fauna, the people became desperate, and in desperate times, people do desperate things.

On a trip foraging for food, It might have been fate, or a curse that brought the villagers to an unknown area. A mausoleum lay in ruins, cracked open with the force of huge stones thrown from the heavens. Spirits that were trapped in the mausoleum where not kind, nor friendly. One of them was especially sinister. The undead quickly felt the desperation and hunger in the villagers and quickly moved to possess them, bending their minds to the will of the evil necromancer that lay in the tomb.

The mind of the necromancer was full of dark and forbidden magics and alchemical formulas…..all stemming from the death, and flesh of humans…..(which are printed in blood in the grimoire).

Powerful was this necromancer, commanding raiding parties to scour the lands, rendering flesh and bone, for feast, potions, and the beautifully corrupt art of his evil craft………

Ravicus jolts, steering his thoughts from the past, and smells human flesh, nearby, and just in time too, for the hunger is upon him……Muhahahahahaah. ~Ravicus Domdred~

Shardfall and the Village of the Damned Pt 1 (the Curse of Anthor Poagphus the Hungered)

While stirring restlessly in wait, after laying the bait for some unfortunate passerby to notice…….he again turns to the dark crimson text in the Domdred Grimoire, and begins to revisit the tale of the origins of the City of the Damned….

…..As starvation took hold of the villagers, formation of scouting parties where fully attended in hopes of finding some means of sustenance. One party in particular, led by a young lean farmer’s son, struck out eastward, for it was in that direction that laid unexplored areas since the massive shardfall that decimated the region. With watchful eyes the group journey toward the rising sun, up and around the huge pillars of stone which littered the plundered soil in every direction. Crawling across the lowest point of one of the horizontally laying pillars, an eerie image presents itself.

Shattered stone pieces of what resembles a crypt, a mausoleum of ancient craftsmanship lay in tangled piles earth and stone. Upon closing in on the ruins, a foul must lay in the air, stinging the nostrils and setting in an itch that could not be rid of. It was a mist, a mist sort of like what you would see viewing through a piece of thin black satin. A mild distortion of the rabble strewn about.

With trembling lips and cautious advancement, the farmers son pierced the opaque veil and was stilled in his steps, the breath escaped his lungs as he tried to force out a warning. Instantly, vise like grips of twin skeletons grabbed at his arms, forcing him in place. Out of the debris, a shadow stirs, then becomes visible, an apparition of unspeakable horror! It glides closer, with tattered rags flailing around him. Within an inch of his nose, the ghostly eyes of the necromancer stole into his own, reaching in to his very core. It was with no more than a whisper that his very soul was ripped from his body and absorbed into the shifting form of the undead lich. He closed his eyes………

The skeletons quickly released the body, which for a brief second slumped, then quickly animated back to form! The body seemed to double in size, perhaps an illusion. He then spoke and with the voice of the young man abruptly stated: “I, Anthor Poagphus , have arisen once again!” With saying that, he turned and walked back into the mist, onward toward the unknowing remaining party members……muhahahahah…….

Ravicus Domdred circa 2014

Posted by Lord Baldrith - Email Author
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