Necromancer's Moon

XIV - Gravebirth

The pessimistic boy gathered his belongings from the desolated wreckage of his temple and somberly traipsed southwards. With no knowledge of his master's precise location, a true sense of purposelessness filled his gut. The burning of his brethren, and the loss of his temple and its centuries of knowledge now lay in ruin and ashes. The demoralised child was left with little option now but to discern the trail of his master's cowardly retreat. The small sense of comfort that his soul had once hoped to embrace in returning to the warmer and more familiar home province of Abyssa had been now been utterly crushed by the sickening chills of fear and trauma that ceaselessly pulsed down his spine. Nevertheless, the possession of the Void within him was only fueled further by absolute hatred and vengeance, and spared no second in locating what little of his cult remained in hiding.   

Many days had passed in pursuit of his master, and his contempt for the sun only grew in the many hours he spent forced in its exposing, bare presence. The slave of Dägon meandered further into the bowels of the southern province, passing many insignificant villages and towns for any trace of the Archmortal's seclusion. Through many hours of deep contemplation, it soon became apparent to the boy that Zariph would have most effectively fled from the temple alongside Zolun in exertion of his unearthly ability to harness an unfathomed haste. Leading the boy to believe that their withdrawal stretched to the lands farthest from civilisation within Abyssa. It was in this realisation that the boy remembered a specific and sacred region from the cult's dark scriptures - The Grey Hollow. This colossal gravesite was largest of the four provinces. Many once travelled to this terminal dumping ground to surrender their loved ones to the wretched soil, until the accumulated stench of decay lingered too foul for all but the impurest of men. The mass grave was idyllic to the coven's centrality of death, and was implied to be the safest haven in the event of the brotherhood's collapse. Icarus recollected its location to be at the southernmost tip of Nephilir. Where beyond none had sailed, and where darkness engulfed the sky longest. Only a mere hour of sunlight touched its corpse ridden soils each day. The boy obsequiously stormed through the barren plains of Abyssa. As he ventured towards the coast, his conscious grew to understand that his eyes would soon meet the southern edge of the immense isle that Lord Dägon created aeons ago. It would take seven days of burdensome travel before the boy would complete his arrival upon the desolate grounds of The Grey Hollow.

The butchering of many animals were scattered in trail behind the gruesome boy's path. All was left horrifically blemished and depleted of life by the hands of the cultist, in order to fulfil his dark and eternal desire to devour the innocent. Patrols of passing men would avoid meeting eyes with the corrupted child, fearing the blood that seeped from his tarnished robes.

As the boy progressed further south from civilisation and towards the coast, the howling winds gradually dwindled away into an unnerving, still silence. The cliffs grew steep, and the forestry far beneath its chasms lay cloaked beneath the wandering mists. As the cultist traversed the ominous landscape, the gloom of The Grey Hollow began to linger in the air as if its taint were intertwined with the very roots of nature itself. The contorted, withering pines amongst him crumbled in their grotesque state of frailty before the faint footsteps of the dark worshipper. His soul grew weary and sorrowful from the bleak, and devastating atmosphere as he awaited in perpetual fear for the inevitable trauma that lay ahead. Soon the boy had met with the immense sea of graves, witnessing the many monuments left unmarked and unremembered in this truly nihilistic utopia. The boy's lungs were filled with the rotting air of a thousand generations, as his possession basked in the mass disintegrating of life. The boy's eyes wandered above the black serrated gates to the endless expanse of clouds, void of all colour and warmth as they draped over the dismal cemetery; a sight of absolute bliss to the corruption embedded in flesh.

As the footsteps of the boy met with the land of the lamented, his soul felt truly godforsaken, and ultimately worthless to the greater meaning of existence from the immeasurable scale of demise that surrounded him. He felt the very aura of death envelop itself around him, its disturbing presence awaiting to harvest and claim his spirit with each passing second.