Fealty Restored

It was taken in fear. And in no small part desire. There was no thought to what had gone before, only what was wanted in the now. No consideration for crime. What was this one thing, in a world gone mad? But no matter fear, desire, nor need, its removal was a crime. A stain. In older years, better years, a stain perhaps to be washed away in time and repentance as the foolishness of youth.

But in the magic-wracked, new-damned lands plaguing what had until recently been a great empire, it was one more in what became an avalanche of terror beneath a keep and her duchy. Curse begot theft, and theft begot curse. And thus the dead rose.

All the more for what was a treasure of Blood in stone. No matter that the thief died but shortly thereafter to draining touch, no sooner almost than they had hidden their prize. Unhappy coincidence.

Unknowing of events, what transpired for the knights of the Fall in that most terrible confluence was a desperate, doomed battle against both unliving horde and a thing that neither lived nor died. And as knight and squire and page succumbed one after another, in battle with death or mind-eater, knowledge of the theft was lost. Its hiding place, Celele’s chest, was lost. And with the sealing of the catacombs, treasure and resting place were lost.

With it restored, the dead at last returned to their rest.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Summary: By righting an ancient wrong, the Guild of Knights quelled the undead rising within Aster Malik’s catacombs and returned them to their slumber.

Penned by My hand on the 13th of Chronos, in the year 1016 AF.