Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Oh my… Is this it? I can feel- I can feel the flame speaking to me" a Loimoisian knight spoke in a stunned stupor, cupping the champion's black fire in between his hands, the great chalice had been brought out of its chamber, standing proudly in the center of Loimos's quarters.

"That's right, Loimosfire has reached its peak! All hail our glorious champion! All hail death" both of the foremost knights rose and crossed their blades, it had taken many weeks for even their general to figure it out, the power held within had to be far beyond what mere soldiers and knights like themselves could imagine.

The dark flame of undeath was put together using all possible aspects of death and of the undead, molten down into a crucible and made one into what was often considered the epitome form of a power.

"If I may ask, what has Sir Loimos done to make such a great difference in between the previous iteration and this one? It is nearly as stark of a difference as it is between life and death" a mage with both hands rightly held behind her back, voice somewhat distorted by the mask affixed upon the decayed visage.

The more magically aligned of the troops felt an even greater attraction to this flame, Loimos had brought the chalice here but not lingered around to provide specific explanations.
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"You spend quite a bit of time with him, any ideas Poitirus?" standing a distance away, One asked the faceless mistborn, who had just been thrusting his spear upward at absolutely nothing for the past hours, trying to get a hold of an art Loimos had written down for him on a rock tablet, turning his head to the vampire, running his hand through the beard of algae clinging to the chin, thinking long and hard about it.

"I wouldn't know about that, Sir Loimos rarely speaks of anything other than the current situation, he only ever talks to teach me something, or if I ask a question, otherwise he just makes me fight enemies" Poitirus tapped his spear on the ground as he spoke.

He marked a pause for a moment, the mistborn fully turning his entire body toward the vampire, tapping one finger over a random spot on his face, not that there was anything sensitive there, a slight chuckle escaping him.

"Perhaps you should ask Elenantiel about it"

"Huh? What is it with that living, and why would she know about that?" One leaned forward, narrowly stopping short of a headbutt against the mistborn, pointing her finger and tapping his chest repeatedly.

"I was under the impression that you were always no more than two steps behind him, did you not know that he has met with her a few times in his office? Do you even know where it is?" Poitirus waved in the direction of Loimos's less than useful private space.

"Of course I know where it is, I hid under the desk a few times, no more than twenty… Mmh" she narrowed her eyes at him.

"Nice try water-boy, but you can't get me like this, Loimos would never mingle with livings in that way-"

"What about that Maliah girl? She smells of death more-so than even you and I, and wasn't she the first to receive a gift from the general? I even heard that he once took her to dinner!" he leaned forward, bringing one hand up to where a mouth would normally be, as though sharing a most sensible piece of information "A date, if you will…"

Watching the vampire's expression crumbled, her pale face somehow turning even paler.

"No goddamn way… But, I called dibs on those putrefied bones!" watching the vampire skitter away like a snake with centipede legs, Poitirus nodded to himself, some light bullying was definitely a good use of his time.

Now, he just needed to find a good place to hide for when she realised the trickery and told her three friends about it, anticipating future danger was a lesson he had learned from Loimos, and using it in this way was most certainly a good application.

For now though, he turned his attention back to the practice of his battle art, listening the conversations of the troops, him and Loimos had gone on to many expeditions by now, the first one dating back to at least two months ago, Poitirus was not quite certain, his sense of time passing had gotten really weird since turning into an undead, a minute and a hour, a day and a week… Those seemed awfully similar now.

Anyone could come up to him and say that it had been a year, and he wouldn't even question it.

The conversations between the two foremost knights of Loimos were always the most interesting, always knowing of the new troops, new castes that had emerged, and of those that showed particular talents, which was not exactly common considering that the greater majority had sprouted from the ground and thus began as the lowest of the low, but taking into account the sheer number of undeads that trained in this underground rooms, a fair bit of outliers were deemed to show up.

Of which there had actually been one since the very first expedition, a rank and file soldier that had the unnatural capabilities to always mince and shatter his own weapons with just a few attacks, if not on the first, so it was just decided that he would focus on just using his body to fight.

If one entered the training grounds of Loimos and heard someone shouting, or saw a soldier punching and headbutting a wall, it was probably him, somewhat of an eccentric that insisted on keeping the armour of a regular soldier even as he definitely qualified to be a knight or other.

Poitirus was around here mostly to check for any undead that seemed to bear some affinity for the aquatic environment, as Loimos had told him to seek to form his ranks himself, and not simply take the undeads already in the waters and those that would come, and seek specialists elsewhere.

Truth be told, Poitirus wasn't certain where to look, some vampires of Vespertillo were doomed to be more inclined to the oceans, but that would mean impeding upon the ranks of a gravelord, that was not proper, and one of the reasons why Loimos was forming his own forces from the naturally spawning undeads.

"It is time for a second expedition upon the islands" out of absolutely nowhere, Loimos's voice rang out throughout the underground chambers, leading to a collective movement of all of the troops, aligning before him like ants marching out of their nest.

"Give me an overlook of our current forces" he asked the two leading knights.