Dark Age Year 871
Twenty Third day of the Third month
“The village of Golden Apple was an experience, to say the least. In many ways, it was the first step on the path I took to become an adventurer and an independent mercenary. Although, to be honest, at the time, I think I was a little too young for such a life, but it was the state of the world at the time. It was a chaotic time that didn’t reward any kind of hesitation and weakness; in fact, it more often than not rewarded the complete opposite. As the best and worst aspects of the human race were on full display, even I myself wasn’t fully immune to such things. Despite the many hardships that came with it, there was something magical about it to me. Maybe it was the thrill of battle, the adventure and freedom, or perhaps it was the comrades and friends I made along the way. Even now, I still haven’t found the answer as to why I found those times so magical. Perhaps it was the rose-tinted glasses of youth or nostalgia talking. But regardless, what started out as a simple job, and should have been a simple job, quickly turned into a complicated web of truth and lies. If there is anything, any lesson I learned during that job, it is that nothing is always quite what it seems.”
—Excerpt From the memoirs of Cenric Dellcreek.
After the havoc of last night, with heavy rain, chilling winds, and an undead horde descending upon the village like a swarm of locusts spreading death and decay wherever they strode, the village of Golden Apple was finally greeted by the new dawn. However, unlike other times when night turned to day in the village of Golden Apple, it wasn’t a cause for happiness or joy as it normally would be. Out of the roughly nine hundred villagers that called Golden Apple their home, about half of them were killed and slain by the undead horde outright, while the rest were either terrified, scared right down to the bone, or badly injured, some of whom were teetering on the brink of life and death. It was a miracle in itself that not more people were killed. In fact, Cenric thought it was a miracle that they managed to survive the night. When Cenric exited the hall that night after the undead horde fled back into the forests, he was presented with a ghoulish sight. Almost the entire village was covered in corpses, both old and fresh alike. In the many houses and buildings, the floors, walls, and even the roof were caked and painted with blood splatter or pools of blood that congealed on the floors. It was a complete massacre that didn’t spare anyone – the men, the women, the children, even the old and infirm. None were spared before the undead horde; death came for them all equally, as it would someday come for him, for Rayner, and maybe even Tharos. If he could die or even be killed at all.
It was a massacre that reminded him of the massacre in the city of Zarbar, although even worse. At least the people had more of a fighting chance or the chance to get away. Those people were warriors, soldiers, and mercenaries, skilled in the field of arms and warfare. They had nothing but the endless sky and the wasteland to run before the creatures of liquid metal or twisted flesh could cut them down. But these villagers had nothing like that. They were not fighters; they were farmers, woodmen, and craftsmen. While some of them put up a good fight, it wasn’t enough, nor did they have anywhere to run to. Most of them were barricaded and trapped in their homes and were cut down where they stood as the undead closed in on them. The place that should be safe, a place of comfort and joy, a place that should be free of sorrow, now became their tombs.
He could see it all illuminated by bright torches and faint moonlight, in their faces, in their pale, angry, and horror-stricken expressions, in their eyes, as their lifeless and fear-flushed gazes stared back at him. Cenric could only see that once again, they were not living people nor were they empty shells devoid of the spark of life. They were reminders that he wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t save his village of Dellcreek, he couldn’t save Torag nor the other slaves in Zarbar. Hell, he barely managed to protect and save himself that night from the zombies that tried to eat him alive. If it wasn’t for Tharos and Rayner, he most likely would have ended up as chopped liver inside the stomachs of zombies or carrion birds. Some of which were now flying overhead the village, brought here by the smell of rotting and putrid flesh.
And this hurt him, it hurt and pained him more than he could possibly imagine. This pain slowly began to eat away at his heart even more than the old scars he earned while enslaved or the fresh wounds he got from the undead horde that now traced his young and still youthful body. It was the pain of failure. It was the pain that he wasn’t good enough, still wasn’t good enough. Perhaps he had been too harsh on himself, perhaps he was being too impatient. That’s what Tharos would tell him, and maybe Tharos was right. He was still in the early stages of his training with Tharos, and yes, he had gotten better, made great improvements in these last two months of training according to what Tharos had told him. Or maybe Tharos was telling him what he wanted to hear to temper his insecurities. Cenric couldn’t always tell with Tharos. But regardless, he didn’t like the idea of being useless or being unable to help when people needed him. He didn’t want to be dead weight.
These were the feelings that kept him up for the rest of the night, outside of the brief flashes of zombies closing in on him and trying to eat him alive, or skeletal warriors swinging and almost hitting him straight in the face with a spiked clubs or rusted swords. Until morning came, not that morning was any better. In the morning, a village meeting was held, and it was decided that most of the remaining villagers would flee, heading to other villages to warn others of the danger, while the village elder and the rest would stay to make a stand against this necromancer and their undead horde. After the meeting, the villagers would get to work, readying defences, and arming themselves with weapons and armour from the storehouse. During this time, Tharos would leave to try to track down the necromancer while he and Rayner stayed behind to help the villagers with what they required. What was required of them was to take care of the dead bodies by burning them, as per Tharos’ suggestion, to save time. They decided to dig a massive grave pit to dump the bodies into for burning later. With the help of a few villagers, they managed to get it done in a timely manner. By the time they finished dumping the bodies in the pit, it was midday. The smell was terrible, and Rayner was not his usual self during this time.
After they were finished and the villagers left them for their much-needed break, Rayner would mutter under his breath, “Cowards and milk drinkers, the lot of them.” Turning his head to Cenric, he added, “Let’s hope for your sake, whelp, that you don’t turn out like them or end up like them,” gesturing with his head towards the mass grave the two of them just dug.
He looked up at Rayner and nodded slowly.
“Remember, you’re a Wilder, with warrior’s blood flowing through your veins. Battle and war are your life. As long as you remember that, you will turn out fine, unlike these weak and spineless cowards. If this were a Wilder village, these undead wouldn’t have stood a chance. These villagers are so weak that even a boy like yourself is a better fighter than them.”
Cenric gave a small nod, not so much in agreement with his words, but maybe the sentiment of coarse “As you say.”
“Anyway,” he continued, “if you want to sneak off and look into that farm, now would be a good time while all these milk drinkers are too busy weeping in sorrow.”
“What will ya tell them, if they notice i am gone.”
“I don’t think they will notice, and even if they do, they believe that whatever I tell them, they’re too cowardly to question otherwise. Now get a move on.”
Cenric gave a quick nod and rushed off to gather his gear once the undead had left. He thought it would be foolish not to bring weapons with him, especially considering
Tharos had recent suspicions. There was no telling who or what he could encounter at the farm. There was also the fact that what he was doing was trespassing, along with breaking and entering. If he got caught, whether or not Tharos’s suspicions were true, it wouldn’t bode well for him or the group. After retrieving what he needed from his room—his armour, axe, and a couple of daggers—he made his way to the farm, staying low and sticking to the tree line to make it easier to hide. It didn’t take him long to get to the farm.
As he got to the farm, around the outskirts what shocked him first was how big it was, about maybe Ten to maybe fifteen acres of land. It quite impressive, the biggest farm in the village of dull creek was maybe about half the size.
“This Ozias must have been some sort of super farmer to do all this,” Cenric thought to himself as he started walking through one of the fields that had been left untilled. It felt soft beneath his feet, dark brown water started to pour from the mud, and a faint sloshing sound he could hear underneath his feet. Stopping for a moment to bend down and scoop up a handful of dirt, the soil had a rich earthy smell to it and was full of worms. He stared at the pile in his hand for a few moments, feeling the softness of the dirt and the worms wiggling between his fingers before gently placing it back on the ground. This place started reminding him of home, and as soon as such thoughts entered his mind, Cenric felt a rush of warm feelings starting to wash over him. For a moment as he stood there, he wasn’t the former slave trying to prove his worth to his saviour, nor was he a rookie adventurer starting out. At his very core, he was still that farm boy from a small village with a dull-looking creek in it, and perhaps that was all he would be, regardless of the new roles that were thrust upon him.
“So much has happened.”
It was only two, no, maybe even three years ago at this point that everything had changed. What started as a normal day turned into a day of hell, with people murdered and those who couldn’t get away captured in chains. It was the day when his simple life as a farm boy ended, the day that the village of Dellcreek burned, and the day that his new life began. Though what this new life entailed, he was still unsure. Sure, he was free, but he still didn’t know what to do with that freedom, aside from following Tharos around. And perhaps he will never fully figure it out. But maybe, just maybe, Tharos could help him figure that out.
As he continued walking through the untilled fields, the homestead came into view in the distance. It was a rather simple and homely-looking house, about two stories tall and quite wide, large enough to easily accommodate ten people. It was the type of house that even a small village like Dellcreek would have, though less nice-looking. There was something almost charming about this house; it was the kind of place where you could envision starting a family, growing old, and waiting for age or disease to take you.
“Starting a family.” he let that thought linger in his mind. For a moment, he saw a flash of Estrid, not as she was when he last saw her, but how he imagined she would look now if she was alive. He pictured her sparkling reddish-brown eyes and rounded face alive with joy, her long and flowing Chestnut brown hair with small braids. Her once skinny body and limbs becoming more muscular and limber like that of a cat. She would be taller as well, and perhaps more well-endowed in the chest area.
Cenric felt a slight blush spread across his cheeks as his face started turning a faint shade of red. He shook his head.
“She’s a friend.”
Even though there were aspects about Estrid that he found cute and oddly charming, more so than he did with the rest of the girls in Dellcreek or any other girl he had met so far. But at the end of the day, if he was honest with himself, he only viewed her as a friend and loved her more like a sister. If he was being honest, that was all he would ever view her as.
He couldn’t help but give a small chuckle at the thought of the poor person who might eventually win her affections, or the fact that those affections would be mutual.
Due to her love of taxidermy and other related hobbies, many of the older men and women in the village would complain behind her and her family’s back that she was unmarriageable. “For what man would take such a strange and morbid girl as a wife?” they would say ever so often, and these comments annoyed him to no end, even though he didn’t know what the word morbid meant. Maybe he should ask Tharos about it sometime in the future, Tharos knew a lot of things, big and complicated words were surely one of them.
After crossing several more acres of untilled fields, pastures, and fenced enclosures, Cenric found himself standing just outside the porch of the homestead. He looked around, keeping his ears alert for any noise, but there was nothing. The farm was empty, quiet, and still, with no sign of life anywhere. It was rather unnerving, even with undead creatures stalking about. The emptiness of the farm felt unnatural to him. As he got closer to the farm, the sounds of birds chirping and crickets became more distant. In fact, he couldn’t hear anything aside from the rustling of trees and grass in the wind and the droplets of water in puddles, buckets, and troughs around the farm.
“What kind of mess am I about to get into now?” he thought to himself as he stepped onto the porch and reached his hand towards the door. As he twisted the knob, he noticed the door wasn’t opening.
“Locked, figures.” he muttered to himself.
Cenric quickly glanced at his axe and the daggers that were tied to his belt for a second. “Well, there are windows. I could use the axe to break down the door or one of the windows. But that would make too much noise and alert them. Maybe there’s another way to get into the house.”
Cenric then circled around the homestead and reached the back, where he found what looked like the entrance to a cellar, possibly connected to the homestead.
Giving the cellar door a quick tug, he found it was unlocked.
“What luck.”
But before we went down into the cellar, he noticed behind him, there was a tombstone, a nice-looking tombstone with an inscription on it. It was way nicer than anyone in this village could afford or make. It was covered with flowers, chrysanthemums to be precise, and by the looks of them, they were fresh. They had only been there maybe a day or two at most, by his guess.
Walking closer to the tombstone, though he couldn’t read Invicti very well, he knew some basics but not enough to fully read what was on this tombstone.
The tombstone read, “Here lies Ozias…………” As he finished reading the inscription, he noticed what looked like another inscription, a smaller one hidden by some dirt at the bottom of the tombstone. As he bent down and dusted the dirt off, he read the inscription. “Rest well, my beloved. Faustina.” Cenric’s green eyes widened and lit up.
“Faustina, that was the name of the mage Tharos mentioned, and this mage knew Ozias, the person who was murdered.” As Cenric read this, puzzle pieces started to slot into place. He didn’t know what or why, but something wasn’t right, and he had a feeling that if he wanted answers, he might find them in the homestead. If he could find something, he could prove not only to himself but also to Tharos that he wasn’t a dead weight, that he could be useful.
He would take a deep breath and steady his nerves, summoning all the foolhardy and youthful courage he could muster as he opened the cellar door, closing it behind him as he slowly walked down its wooden steps with an axe in hand. He wished he had brought a torch with him as he walked, as pure darkness filled his vision. Not knowing what he would find down there or in the home itself, but with any luck, he could find his way upstairs. As he reached the cellar, it was pitch black, and feeling his way through, he grabbed onto something metal; it felt like a metal lever. He then heard a clicking noise. The torches on the walls and the random candles spread throughout the cellar lit up, revealing before him what looked like a mage’s study.
As he stood there taking this all in, Cenric had a feeling that for this investigation, he might have bitten off a bit more than he could chew.
