A Hunger after Thought and Flesh

A mind-eater, Duke Davis Kephry had called it.

It was a moniker coined by those struggling in the Fall, a name given to something seemingly unknown to modern Achaea. Under the assault of the creature both mind and memory were consumed, tired swords slipping free and eyes blinking closed into a sleep that heralded Finality. For days did battle rage within the upper cloisters of the catacombs, the knights falling back only to recover vigour and vitality for their next assault.

Fire was its bane, Duke Kephry had written, and fire did they wield to battle’s end. It was no simple beast, neither alive nor dead nor even a creature of twisted undeath. It could not die, he had written, but he had not written that it could not be destroyed. So destroy it the Guild of Knights did.

They were seven of the Guild, in all. Friztic, Aerek, Oenae, Drican, Salisa, Aodfionn, and Myrddin. And it was they who ended a terrible dread that had plagued Davis Kephry’s era.

With the mind-eater neutralised, the way was clear… for a second foe to rear its head.

Waiting deeper in the tunnels was no lone monster, nor even a pack of ghouls, but true hordes of the unliving. The dead of centuries upon centuries, risen in the chaotic wake of Seleucar’s Fall and multiplying ever more beneath Aster Malik in the centuries since.

Gathering sword and steel and spell, the Guild marched to battle once more, but this time they did so beside others aplenty. With allies from the adventurers of Sapience to do battle with the menacing dead, the carnage that ensued saw itself worthy of story, song, and saga in the striving against viridian flame and twisted undeath.

Yet though diminished and dwindled from the aggregate of centuries by the strength and valour of Sapience’s adventurers, surely never to reach such a multitude again, the restless dead continued, if slowly, to rise.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary: Delving the catacombs, foundations, and subterranean realms beneath Aster Malik, the Guild of Knights battled first a thing that knew no Death, before going on alongside Sapient adventurers to destroy a veritable horde of undead with bravery, tenacity, and valour.

Penned by My hand on the 19th of Sarapin, in the year 1016 AF.