Long, black hair kept most of her body hidden. Only on close inspection could I spot a minute breathing. His daughter on the other hand appeared genuinely dead. And although I could tell that he noticed us, he seemed to ignore our presence. An unkempt beard around dry lips under white, heavy eyes stared an empty stare at our appearance. The king sat on his throne, tired, pale, grizzled. To look at these two was to gaze at misfortune and dead dreams. Much like the village around the castle and the forest around the village, yes, even the hungering badlands around the forest, this place was in ruins.Įven so, the rotting royalty persisted and the only two remaining members of a once noble family remained in what time reduced to an oversized sarcophagus. But most of the embellishments and decorative features had dissolved, leaving only dust and stains on the carpet.
Many torn tapestries, cracked bricks and partly overgrown floor attested the decay of a palace that truly must have been luxurious during its time.
Carved pillars that assumed the likenesses of knights and guardians created a tangible distance between the tall windows that stopped only short of the high ceiling. Around them a vast space that was occupied by an array of various statues that stood against the walls. To our right there was the heavy double door that led to the smaller room in between the throne room and the bridge that floated in the void.Īlong a blue carpet to the left we saw the two ornate thrones whereupon sat the undead king and his daughter next to him. And to our perturbation we found the answer.įollowing our egress from the dungeons below, the three of us emerged from a side door of the ginormous throne room that was several times greater than its purpose required. Why he had gone through the trouble of carrying it up a ladder under the most arduous circumstances. We had asked ourselves just what that infernal steward, if indeed that person served their duty as such, needed a bucket of drained blood for. And on our journey we saw many things, terrifying and unspeakable but none as bizarre as the sight that revealed itself before us in the throne room. I only knew that it stood in connexion to the seal of bone that Nephethys, Shthelith and I sought to acquire when we stepped into the woods, through the hamlet before the castle. Until the last, I had not known the tragedy that had befallen the kingdom that the three of us had trespassed upon. Foreword: I'm not as happy with this one as I could be but the way the forest behaves was somewhat of a last minute thing.