Descargar la aplicación
3.7% Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead / Chapter 27: Second Time

Capítulo 27: Second Time

Leaving the fish monsters resting at the bottom, Loimos approached the door, sensing a considerable amount of life force coming from a singular being, in fact, that amount was so great that the undead's better reasoning should have dictated for him to back off and come back later.

Yet, he took hold of the door, placing his skeletal limb against its surface, it had yet to begin rusting in spite of the water, but it was softer than expected, it was like the metal had begun absorbing the water like a sponge.

He gripped the handle and tried to turn it, the movement was smooth and unimpaired, the door swung open on its own, revealing another expanse nearly identical to the one Loimos had been standing in.

Only that it was dry, free of water even as Loimos unsealed the door, the water was stopped by an invisible force, the unseen wall bore no effect on the skeleton.

Before the undead's eyes laid a curious sight, he moved forward, some sort of chair with armrests equipped with various sorts of objects sprouting from it.

Items made out of various materials, symbols shining with various colours engraved on their surface, looking down, the ground was free of any of that volatile dirt, it was oddly flat, various circles drawn along its surface with the chair in its center.

Loimos didn't step beyond any of the circles and simply observed the figure slumped in the chair, hooked up to all of those seemingly magically powered devices.

It was a familiar yet different figure, one that had no business to still be breathing.

The old man Loimos had first relieved of his excess life force was still alive, incredible amounts of life force being constantly produced and injected into his barely twitching body.

He looked even more decrepit than he had been back then, his grey beard was nowhere to be seen, having fallen to pieces, leaving only what was hardly recognisable as a person.

The living corpse opened his eyes, the effort being the greatest he must have exerted in a long time.

Loimos looked up at the ceiling, there was to be found the secret to the old man's machine, all of the machinery took root from a single orb stuck in the ceiling.

Much larger than the others Loimos had encountered on pedestals before, this one wasn't the same thing, this was the core of this feeble dungeon.

Not that Loimos could be certain, but it would make for a fine explanation as to why this entire place was nothing more than the shell of a dungeon, the elderly man had come along and repurposed the core to his own benefits.

And what filthy benefits they were, eternal life.

The vestige of a man could consider himself lucky that Loimos couldn't be offended, otherwise he would have already gotten to taste his own ground up teeth against the ground.

"You… Again…" his words took a while to come but they had the benefit of being clear this time.

The undead knew for a fact that this was the same person, their life force was squirming in the same way.

'...'

'...'

Was he perhaps expecting a conversation with Loimos? Not that the undead was adverse against producing words and listening to some random guy that would soon be dead, but he couldn't speak. 

The crumbling sack of dry flesh sighed in realisation of this fact, and went on to monologue to the one being that couldn't care less.

"I am… Ramth, Ramth Of The Underground Tower" he presented himself, the undead simply standing there, the old man seemed to be meaning to reveal some important information, so his demise could be postponed by a few minutes.

Ramth began to explain that he had been the founder of that underground tower, a secret yet widely known place of learning for mages and scholars interested in the undead.

Whilst the tower was quickly deemed heretical, forbidden and many other bad words, people that wished to study, learn and spread their discoveries about the undead always found their way in.

Those that wanted to burn it down and hang all of its denizens never could find even a single good lead, Ramth was just that good at concealment.

But unlike those that came after him, Ramth wasn't truly interested in the dead, he had only created this place because he wished to understand the workings of death force, so as to manipulate his life force to behave similarly and achieve immortality.

At least, that was the theory, he never achieved his goal and ashamed from standing in the midst of true geniuses and scholars of the undead, he left his own tower and locked himself deep into this dungeon.

The best he was able to create was this device, modifying and adapting the dungeon core, he made use of the fact that it could create life to turn it into a giant 'machine of immortality', technically successful, he couldn't help but scorn his own creation.

He never stopped it however, because being alive in this way was simply so much better than death.

Before hooking himself to it permanently, he had managed to create some sort of clone of himself, which Loimos had brutally slaughtered on his first day of existence.

"I only wanted to transport my mind into one of them" Ramth had used the orbs to transport the souls of others, and using the pile of bodies and souls as sacrifice, fuel for his spell, he hoped to manifest their physical form, kill their soul and mind and then place himself into their bodies.

All ridiculous make believe, he didn't have the sort of competence to pull this sort of thing off.

The orbs weren't even his own creation, stolen before they were used in a summoning ritual.

And Loimos, who had been forged from the countless corpses and souls, had nothing to do with him, he had simply been there to witness a natural event.

"Curse you, who does not know degradation, who does not know the looming presence of death-" Ramth only wanted to speak his mind to the first person that would come along, he had spent too much time in isolation, he felt the need to talk.

Yet, he had forgotten who, rather, what he was conversing with, he had stared at the wall whilst retelling his miserable existence.

A skilled mage, but not one of exceptional talent.

A man with a dream too grand for his capacities.

He had failed to judge his own worth accordingly and tackled challenges that wouldn't topple over no matter how much momentum he accumulated.

His gaze wandered to his listener and then, his words got stuck in his throat as he saw the pits of darkness in Loimos's eyes brighten up with a purple glow.

A colour that simply didn't exist, yet did.

The undead said nothing, but Ramth felt like he had received an answer either way.

Loimos knew all that there was to know about death, because he was a pure manifestation of its grasp.

"I-" the decrepit old man didn't get to ramble any further, he had nothing of interest to spout.

Loimos walked up to him and with a single swing, dispersed the living before him like dust in the wind.


next chapter

Capítulo 28: Not Wanting To Work

The light of the rising sun shone light on the floating dust and dirtiness of the single window of an office.

The planks and beams used to build this room had gone through many changes since they had been set in place, heat, cold, humidity, and of course, the coming and going on the two owners of the two desks placed opposite to one another.

Nicely crafted out of cheap, but sturdy wood, a chair creaked as a man with a nose reddened by the regular consumption of alcohol in his younger years, he leaned back and put his feet on his desk.

Today was another day of waiting at the local guild of Throdqdmond, most prosperous city of the surroundings and one of the least wealthy of the kingdom of Tamaris, despite being part of the, if not the richest country of the continent, the city and its surroundings had once had access to lots of natural resources.

It had all run dry, leaving ghost towns, empty villages and cities such as this.

Those sort of concerns weren't on Frank's mind however, he was trying to take a nap.

Failing miserably at slacking on the job, he reached for a book on his desk, without changing his position that he deemed perfectly comfortable.

Straining his body and feeling like he was elongating his arm, he touched the cover of the book with his fingers and managed to drag the book closer and closer until he was able to grasp it.

Forgotten Heroes, written by Bethome Meleme, a recent book that he had gotten his hands on thanks to some random passing scholars forgetting it, truly a boon that he, who had bothered to learn how to write way back to impress a cute girl, would come upon it.

No other guild workers could claim to be nearly as educated as he was, though many could safely describe themselves as more competent.

He opened the book at where he had left off, having only read the very first chapter, or hero in the case of this book, since Bethome Meleme was pretty much listing a bunch of guys from way in the past and going on about what was known about them.

The floorboards creaked as someone made their way toward the room with hurried footsteps.

"Frank! You won't believe this- Oh what are you reading?" a tall and lanky man burst into the room, easily distracted by the sight of the tool of learning.

"Bethome Meleme's latest book" Frank casually responded, showing the cover to his colleague and friend.

"Ah, the sham of a historian?" whilst Frank may be the technically most educated for he had received the most lectures, Louis was definitely more knowledgeable than he could ever hope to be, simply on account that the lanky man didn't stay seated in his chair all day.

"Sham?! She is the most recognisable name of the field, everyone holds their breath when she publishes something, I heard"

"Isn't Meleme a man? Anyways, didn't you notice anything while reading through it? I see that you left a bookmark, so you must have read the first chapter, he is totally giving his own opinion!" Frank titled his head at Louis's words.

"Yeah, sure, but what's the problem about this?" he asked cluelessly.

"Historians aren't supposed to be biased Frank, anytime Bethome Meleme speaks about the undead, he manages to flip off and go on tangents, in a written format no less" the lanky guild worker shook his head, apparently, he had also read the book.

"I mean, everyone should agree that the undead are bad, right? It's not that bad of a problem" he removed his feet from his desk and sat down properly.

"Certainly, but he totally idolises that Thanatok Ynigós guy, who knows what he didn't say about him so as to not tarnish his pretty quote"

Both of the men looked at each other for a few moments, both nodding their heads in agreement.

"Bethome Meleme is totally a woman though, I learned to write to impress a girl with her exact name when I was fifteen" Frank spoke with utter calmness before looking down on the book in his hands.

"Huh?"

"The next chapter seems to be about an elven hero"

"Yes it is- What did you say just before?" Frank ignored the question with ease and just began reading the book aloud.

_____________

Maiele Liameilos, The Elven Light, a heroine of great standing whose death was never recorded, leading me to believe that she might still be walking amongst us.

Still, that is of little importance, much like Thanatok Ynigós, she was a dire asset in shielding life from the vile hands of undeath.

Her light was a direct counter to the undead king's darkness and capable of burning vampires to a crisp, by all means, she single-handedly dismantled the ranks of the dead by sealing their ruler in his own throne room.

With the king out of commission and the vampires unable to do anything, the endless advance of decay was halted and pushed back, to such an extent that to this day, many aren't even aware that we were once at war with an army of the dead counting numbers beyond our imagination.

In fact, allow to me emit a theory that will certainly gather the ire of many of my fellows who would rather believe in the benevolence of the all-mighties above:

The gift of comprehension and understanding was a reward for the cooperation of all life against death.

In any case, Maiele Liameilos is a great figure, which I find troubling even her own kind, known to live for centuries and sometimes even longer, have also managed to forget about her incredible deeds.

_____________

"Well, she isn't so dead set on the undead part this time, didn't even insult their king" Frank remarked as Louis just stared at him.

"What?"

"Nothing, anyways, I came here to tell you about the discovery of a dungeon nearby, Eppie and her party are the ones that found it, they also reported the presence of a strange monster that hides in darkness, seems fairly cunning and can also take a crossbow bolt at close range without any problem" Louis decided that he would get the answers out of Frank at another time and simply proceeded with his job.

"Heh, not getting harmed by a bolt from Lynn isn't anything too impressive, both her weapon and ammunitions are junk, it doesn't even fire straight" the red-nosed guild worker dismissed the supposedly impressive defences of the unknown monster using facts and logic.

"We send Zola and Saul to check things out?" Frank nodded his head at this, the two adventurers mentioned were the best around, not only in terms of capabilities, but were also the most trustworthy to work with.

Because the two were brothers.

And Louis was with their sister.

So they had no choice but to do their job reliably, or else they would get scolded by big sis.


Load failed, please RETRY

Regalos

Regalo -- Regalo recibido

    Estado de energía semanal

    Desbloqueo caps por lotes

    Tabla de contenidos

    Opciones de visualización

    Fondo

    Fuente

    Tamaño

    Gestión de comentarios de capítulos

    Escribe una reseña Estado de lectura: C27
    No se puede publicar. Por favor, inténtelo de nuevo
    • Calidad de escritura
    • Estabilidad de las actualizaciones
    • Desarrollo de la Historia
    • Diseño de Personajes
    • Antecedentes del mundo

    La puntuación total 0.0

    ¡Reseña publicada con éxito! Leer más reseñas
    Votar con Piedra de Poder
    Rank 200+ Clasificación PS
    Stone 0 Piedra de Poder
    Denunciar contenido inapropiado
    sugerencia de error

    Reportar abuso

    Comentarios de párrafo

    Iniciar sesión

    tip Comentario de párrafo

    ¡La función de comentarios de párrafo ya está en la Web! Mueva el mouse sobre cualquier párrafo y haga clic en el icono para agregar su comentario.

    Además, siempre puedes desactivarlo en Ajustes.

    ENTIENDO