MineZ Descent To Madness (refined)

Society has fallen. The dead rise, hungry and berserk. Many of the survivors of the world hide from their threat while many more form warring clans. Raverad, Apostle of Agni, awakens in the middle of this world. As he survives and journeys, he finds allies to help combat his enemies. However, the more he uncovers about the world, the more his faith and knowledge of the universe is sorely tested. How shall he approach this post-apocalyptic world, what will he discover, what will bring about his descent into madness?

*DISCLAIMER: Descent to Madness and the other stories connected to this series do not follow the official lore of MineZ.

Story contains light language, violence, and a few mature themes.

Links to other stories in the series:
Last Orders - https://shotbow.net/forum/threads/last-orders-story-thread.58825/
Zenith Rising - https://shotbow.net/forum/threads/zenith-rising.323728/

This story also links with Pyrosfyre's An Uncalculated Mistake: https://shotbow.net/forum/threads/an-uncalculated-mistake.18994/

Comments:
Comments may be posted on this thread. If you wish, constructive feedback would be excellent. Please be respectful.

Chapter 1 - A Lost Soul
Eyes opened and squinted at the beating sunlight. His vision adjusted to see the blue of the sky. He felt the shallow water wrapping around him. Attempting to take a breath, he coughed out water, as though he came close to drowning just a minute ago. The cough forced him to lift his head and feel the pain in his mouth. With his right hand, he reached the part where he felt the most pain: below his left cheek. His jaw was badly hurt. Letting his mouth sag so he would feel the least amount of pain, he pushed himself up to his feet so he could observe his surrounding.
This land was not familiar. It could be the far west of the regional coast or it could be another continent for all he knew. The grass was dry anywhere that was not close to the water. A moderately dense forest was just a short distance from the waters. The forest stretched towards the western horizon for Pulvia knows how far. But fortunately, there was a city just to the right, but it was not one he recognized. How did he get here?
The man’s name was Raverad Achenhyme. Born in a private estate: a lone house up on a hill, just to the northeast of the seaside town of Carmi. There, he was raised by a lovely couple: his father, a fisherman of Carmi; his mother, a merchant of Worthington. As a young child, he was fascinated by two things: the impressive stature of military soldiers and the dominant religion of the region. The latter determined his path in life as a religious man. The former determined his prime deity: Agni, the god of fire. Beginning his chosen path during his youthful years, it was not long until he was deemed Apostle of Agni. As a result, he settled in the abandoned Cathedral of Aeternalis, which he devoted the first few months as Apostle in the restoration of his new home. By the end of his first year, he had converted nearly eighty adherents to the religion, many of whom chose to follow Agni as their primary deity. It was not until several years ago, the Great War erupted between the Eastern Kingdom of Cole and the Western Government of Grimdale. As a result, and not surprisingly, most of the followers of Agni had become soldiers. Raverad too joined the fight as a beacon of faith to inspire the brave and furious hearts of the soldiers. When the war ended, two years ago, he joined the other three Apostles to conduct the peace ceremony. After that, life returned to normal, but many of his followers were gone, killed in the war, remained as soldiers to fight bandits, or simply lost faith after facing the horrors of war. But what happened after all that? How did he end up here?
Raverad wondered why no one came out to help him. In fact, the city seemed quiet. Was it a day of worship? He walked over to the windows of the rearmost building of the city. The place was walled so he could not enter immediately without finding an entrance first. However, he could still see through the windows. The building he walked towards was a church building. As he walked closer, he began to have doubts. No voices, no prayers of people or a priest, were heard from the building. Peering through the window, the seats were all empty and the podium of the priest was vacant. One thing troubled the Apostle more than the emptiness: the blood stains. Only bloodstains. No bodies.
There must have been a terrible bandit raid, he thought. That did not explain the lack of corpses though. Quickly, he spun around to walk the perimeter to find an entrance. He was unarmed and wore only wore a leather outfit that was not his own. While he did wonder about that, the other questionable events made him dismiss the thought.
As he walked by the wall of the city, he saw a silhouette up ahead. It was humanoid, but limped like a drunken man. Raverad increased his pace, trying to catch up to the figure. He did not want to shout because it could put stress on the painful parts his jaw.
Suddenly, the figure seemed to suddenly make spasmodic motions. Raverad thought he heard the growls of a predatory beast come from the stranger. Was this some kind of madman?
“Hey!” Raverad said, trying not to move his mouth. He salivated a little in the process. Swallowing, he felt the sting of pain in his mouth.
Just as he called out at the figure, it dashed towards him. Raverad thought that this man, or woman, was coming to attack him. The figure did not draw any weapon. In fact, it did not run like any human would. Its arms waved everywhere and it bent its head towards him as though he was charging head first with an open mouth. Once it came out of the shade of the trees, Raverad could see the horrid features of the monster.
The man’s skin was sickly green. Its eyes were completely pitch black. The clothes were torn and the body was scratched. Meat all over was rotting. It was a corpse that was moving, alive, and seemingly hungry. Teeth gnashed like some rabid dog. A wooden sword was in a sheath, loosely dangling from a belt. This was a creature of undeath. This was a zombie.
Its full weight crashed onto Raverad almost instantaneously. The Apostle grabbed the upper arms of the zombie, trying to keep the zombie from trying to bite him. Bile-like salivation and blood dripped from its hungry mouth.
Raverad kicked the fiend away from him. He got up, seeing the zombie roll across the ground, gaining a quick recovery. The Apostle noticed that the sheath of the wooden blade had fallen off its hip. His heart pounded harder at the sight of hope within hopelessness.
Reaching for the hilt of the blade, he pulled the sword from the hilt before the zombie could reach him again. As he unsheathed the blade, he swung it across the zombie’s chest. It roared, as though in pain, but kept advancing as though it felt nothing at all. The Apostle backed away, avoiding the thick nails of the zombie that clawed the air as they missed him. Raverad swung at the right arm of the zombie. Still, no pain. The Apostle almost had himself scratched. Fortunately, he evaded from the zombie’s claws by ducking. The zombie stumbled forwards as it passed him.
Finally, the foul-spawn had its back turned. Not for long, though, Raverad thought. He quickly raised his blade horizontally, just below chin level. Then, he punctured the zombie’s neck. It let out a wail, responding as though it felt a surge of agony. But how could it? It must have been frustration, or anger, or defiance. Whatever the case may have been, the zombie no longer was active. Now, it was truly dead.
Once the zombie no longer made any noise, Raverad retracted the blade by tugging at the hilt while kicking the zombie away. Sickly, bile-blood gushed out from the torn throat. The corpse tumbled into the stained, dry grass. Raverad felt sweat bead down his body due to the heat of the sun and the active fighting against the monster.
He fell to his knees. How could something like this happen? Turning to the walled city, he could see through another window. There was another zombie, just standing there, dormant, waiting for prey to come by. Raverad had realized that civilisation was long gone. Everyone was dead. He was still alive for some reason that he could not just remember. Confusion flooded his mind. The Apostle had begun to pray to Agni. Bring me back, he voiced in his mind, bring me back to the life I once knew! Was this punishment? Punishment for his sins? For the sins of the world?
Then, he heard a distant zombie growl. Turning to face the origin, he looked at the zombie through the window again. The snarls had stopped but the zombie had an arrow in its face. Fresh blood splattered the window. It was difficult for Raverad to see but there seemed to be some figure beyond the corpse, one in dark clothing. The stranger moved fast, not like a zombie. A live human being. Raverad teared up and began to laugh. A smile widened on his face. There was hope after all. He was not alone in this world.
As the sun disappeared from view, hiding behind the great towers of the city, Raverad stood up and continued to follow the wall, searching for an entrance.

Chapter 2 - Up to Speed
Raverad peered around the corner of the wall. It was a good thing there was not another one of those zombies. Up ahead, he saw the coastal road coming from the east. The great gravel path was a welcoming site; he was still in the region. This so called coastal road had been a pathway across the southern coast of the region, connecting the eastern town of Geuten to the city of Grimdale. While it did end here at the doorstep of this city, part of it branched off as a narrow trail into the woods. Raverad approached the city gates to see the city name on a sign next to it. As predicted, judging by the fact that this was the primary endpoint of the gravel path, this was the city of Grimdale.
The Apostle only knew a basic history about the capital city of the Western Government. It was once the home of one of three clans in the western forest, along with Aspiremont and Crowmure. When they united, it was Grimdale that was chosen to become the capital city of their new combined government. It was also the location where a restless gathering of mortals defied the gods themselves. The result of this stand varies between storytellers but many agree that the people broke the back of the gods. With the gods weakened, it was up to the Inquisitors to be the ruling iron fist of the gods. When the harsh ways of Inquisitors were deemed unfit, they were replaced by the Apostles in order to bring true faith back to the people. It was working, and had the world not fallen apart, it may have succeeded. Grimdale was also home to the Thieves Guild, who were, at least by Raverad’s knowledge, were a group of people living in the sewers beneath the city specialized in reaching political and economic goals through organized crime. When the Thieves Guild political party finally had one of their own as Governor, the King of Cole declared the Grimdale Government corrupt. This was how the Great War began. Fortunately, that Governor was deposed and a new Governor took his place just in time to make peace before the war went too far. As for what remained of the Thieves Guild, the Apostle knew not.
Once he reached the gates, he saw a man in leather armour standing there, as though he was keeping watch. The leather armour was that of a city guard but instead of a helmet, he wore some kind of fisherman’s hat. Judging by his visage, the man seemed to be in his thirties.
The Apostle approached him, keeping his hands away from the hilt of the sword in his sheath, just to show no threat to the stranger. The guard looked up at Raverad and stood still, a hand close to his sheath. Raverad raised his hands in the air, trying to be more obvious that he was no foe. That did not change the stance that the stranger took. Understandable, the Apostle thought; if the world has fallen, bandits would be a great threat.
“Not many come to places like these,” the man said, not even making a proper greeting. His voice was monotone, showing no emotion in his words as well as his face. “The bigs cities like Romero are always littered with zombies or held by bandits.” He leaned against the wall. “Did you come here seeking refuge?”
“I came here for answers,” Raverad responded. The man raised an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“What do you mean, ‘what happened?’” he replied. “Nothing has been happening.”
Raverad felt irritated. Was this man mad? Or could the stranger be a hallucination? Or perhaps he really was in a dream.
“Nothing has been happening?” the Apostle raised his voice. “Nothing at all?!”
The man now looked worried. “Shhh,” he whispered. Raverad did not understand until a zombie wandered from the building past the gates. The man spun around as the fiend increased its speed from a slow, cumbersome walk to a full out sprint. It was then that the guards drew his stone sword and pushed Raverad to the ground. The Apostle looked up, seeing the man swing his blade at the zombie, striking the zombied in the face a few times until it finally died. The body fell onto the grass by the pathway. He turned back around to face Raverad.
“What were you thinking, you idiot?” the guard whispered, expressing anger in his voice. “Loud noises endanger the lot.”
“You call that nothing?” Raverad pointed to the fallen zombie, ignoring the man’s frustration.
The man turned to the zombie he had just slain. Then, he turned back to the Apostle, his face changed from anger back to confusion.
“You mean that?” the man asked. “Where have you been for the past two months, mate?”
Raverad was suddenly wide eyed. His heart had begun to beat faster. Shock and horror became his primary feelings. He stood up, slowly.
“Two months?” the Apostle repeated. “Has it really been that long?”
“Yup, that was when the outbreak happened,” the stranger replied. “How do you not know of it?”
“I…” Raverad thought about what to say. “I must have lost my memory. I just woke up by the shoreline out there. Only the… outbreak I cannot remember?”
“Memory loss, eh?” the man replied. “I would have thought you were drunk to high heavens because you spoke nonsense in slurs.”
“Apologies for how I talk,” Raverad said. “My jaw is killing me and I am trying to minimize the pain.”
“I can help you with that,” the man offered. “Firstly, we need someone to take over my position.” He looked over his shoulder at the sound of footsteps. “Just in time.”
“I saw everything,” the new stranger spoke. He was shorter but about the same age as the guard. He wore mostly leather armour but had chainmail over his head. A longbow was in his hand and a quiver of arrows on his back. He looked at the Apostle with some intimidating eyes. “Is this man a threat?”
“No,” the first man replied. “And I need to tend to his wounds. Could you take an earlier shift, Zack?”
“Aye,” Zack responded.
As the other stranger stood by the gates, the Apostle walked with the guard into the first building of Grimdale. The two of them strode into the main entrance, which led into an empty mess hall. Dust settled over most of the tables. Spiders had made their homes all over the walls. On the other side was an exit that led to the streets of Grimdale. There was a zombie out there, wandering aimlessly, not noticing them. Raverad knew to keep his voice down.
At the end of the mess hall, the two of them turned right and then left to find a staircase. They walked up higher and higher until they reached the luxury suite. There, the Apostle took a seat while the stranger took out a medical kit. The man took out bandaging and stitching materials and tools. He used them to fix up a cut on Raverad’s jaw. Then, he allowed the Apostle to sleep.

The next day, Raverad woke up and was given a bowl of mushroom stew for breakfast. There was not much in the bowl but it would have to do.
“I’m sorry there isn’t much in there,” the stranger said. “Our farm team has yet to return for another day.”
Raverad slurped down the contents, feeling the heat burn where his stitches were. It forces him to regurgitate some of the soup. Then, he started to drink it again, more slowly this time.
“You have a little system running here?” Raverad asked.
“That’s right,” his friend replied. “Oh, I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Ezra.” He let out a hand, which Raverad shook.
“Pleased to meet you,” the Apostle said. “So, where is everyone? I mean, the survivors in this city. Are there others?”
“Not many,” Ezra replied. “They all live on the top floors, hiding from the zombies. Me and Zack out there, we take turns watching the gate, ready to repel any bandit looters and hope for new allies. We have two people who work at the farm just down the narrow gravel path. They grow watermelons and mushrooms for us and pick apples from the trees. Every week, they come to us with more produce.”
“How come you have not yet cleared the city?” Raverad asked.
“We do not have the manpower. The only other ones who can fight are either out there guarding the farmers and foragers or protecting the survivors in the buildings. Once we get enough people, we can clear this place out. You were the first newcomer for two weeks.”
Raverad suddenly saw flashes in his mind. He looked stunned to Ezra.
“Something I said?” Ezra asked.
“I remember everything,” the Apostle responded.

Chapter 3 - Memories
The undead were coming in great numbers from the west. When word came that Carmi had fallen, Mount Longton prepared to bar them from Cole Castle by making the fort as defensive as possible. Wire was strung from spike to spike, creating a barricade around the perimeter of the base. Archers were stationed on the battlements of every building, ready to unleash salvos of arrows at the walking dead. Swordsmen were garrisoned within those structures to fend off any foul-spawn that breaches the perimeter and survives the volleys.
At the zenith of it all, atop a single tower at the pinnacle of elevation, Raverad stood in his apostate battle armour. Back when Byseford did not exist, and the land was more free to use the great amount of iron mined from the caverns beneath the region, this ancient suit of armour was made for an Apostle of Agni during times of war. The last time Raverad had worn it was during the Great War that ended two years ago. This crimson warplate was not at all uniform with the armour of the soldiers around him. It looked more akin to gladiator armour that the challengers of the Agni Ignis arena would wear (and in fact had been used for such practices before). Cradled in Raverad’s left arm was his helmet: an armoured death mask with demonic horns. The design was to represent the dark, wrathful fury that comes out of a man in times of danger and strife, just as how Agni’s dark brother, the Red Demon, had been born when the mortals rebelled against the gods. In his right was an obsidian stave, a ceremonial staff of office but a weapon nonetheless. With it, he could channel his magical potential through it against his foes. In his hilt, if he needed to draw it, was an iron blade that could cloak itself with fire as burning as his fury in battle. Finally, sheathed opposite from his sword, an ancient obsidian dagger.
Next to Raverad was his student, Athosis Merem. A young boy who was only old enough to be a squire. Athosis wore fire mage robes bearing unique designs of Agni. His hood was down, showing his short hair, and his hazel eyes open wide with fear. He should not have come with the Apostle. Raverad had insisted that he would accompany him, just like every battle, and the boy agreed. Once the Apostle saw the tide of undead emerge from the shadows of the forest, he wished he did not have his student with him. Raverad was no father, so he saw Athosis as a son. Tonight, he could lose him.
Despite the readiness of Mount Longton, it was not enough. As civilian survivors ran for their lives out of the forest, the zombies followed. The undead came from Carmi, Romero, and who knows where else. Arrows fired but only could kill so many. The monsters overwhelmed the fort building like flooding water drowning the soldiers. Even with Raverad and his student unleashing firestorms upon the horde, the undead did not falter in their advance. Some would burn to the point at which they could no longer run, but most simply kept coming at the defenders with nothing more than charred flesh to distinguish them from the unscathed.
The Apostle saw a soldier climbing up the mountain, struggling to get up. He was on his feet when the hand of one of the zombies grabbed onto his ankle. The soldier was getting pulled down towards his demise when Raverad reached for the obsidian dagger. With excellent accuracy, he threw it right into the flesh of the zombie’s arm. Magical power emitted from the blade in the form of some strange mist. The zombie’s skin had begun to rapidly disintegrate, turning into ashes. Its grip no longer was on the soldier, allowing him to retreat to the tower. Once the zombie was gone, the knife rested in the grass by the cliffside.
Raverad turned to Athosis and handed him the staff. This was normal when an Apostle would charge into a fight, and the student would accept without a single word spoke from either of them. However, the Apostle said something.
“If I die, take the soldiers back to Cole Castle,” he whispered with a caring voice. “If that is impossible, just flee, anywhere. Stay alive.”
The Apostle turned away from his student, who did not speak a word in response. He drew his blade, which immediately caught fire, lighting up the night. Then, he lowered his cowl and put on his helmet. Raverad lept off of the battlements and felt his legs hit the ground hard. Fortunately, he was able to land without a scratch or broken bone, his boots enchanted with the power of Simoon breaking his fall. He looked up to see the dagger he needed to retrieve. As he ran towards it, a zombie came up from the right flank, crashing in to him with a hungry intent. The two fell off the edge of the arched hill, descending into the pond below them.
As they splashed into the water, Raverad crushed the zombie’s head on the rocky floor. A gush of bile-blood and grey matter escaped the cracked open head like rising smoke, obscuring the Apostle’s vision only briefly. The weight of the armour made it difficult for Raverad to reach the surface. Once he did, he faced the hordes.
Rising from the pond, he swung his sword in deadly arcs, cutting down any zombie that tried to so much as scratch his armour. Some had tried to bite but only scrapped their teeth on the iron armour he wore. Raverad would respond by either knocking them back or, if his sword had no target, direct his bloody attention towards them.
Something came about inside the Apostle. It was a feeling that he fought against all his life. It was the feeling that he was supposed to keep out of others in battle. For once, it sunk too deep. For once, he had forgotten his way. For once, he faltered. For once, he ran for his life.
Towards the south, he ran away, forgetting the others, even Athosis. It was an overwhelming state of panic. The fear took over his mind, making him forget everything that had happened. For that moment, he even forgot himself.
As he ran, the trees were gone and all that was left was the ocean beyond. He tripped, falling face first into the water. And then….

That was all he could remember. It did explain where he was at the time of the outbreak but not in between then and now.
“Well,” Ezra said, breaking the silence. Raverad forgot that he was here and that Ezra was with him.
“Sorry, I would rather not reflect upon my experience,” Raverad replied. Ezra nodded, respecting the Apostle’s wishes.
“I wouldn’t either,” Ezra said. “An ugly time. The world ended and we were not prepared for it. Now, we cower and hide. These things are no laughing matter if we aren't careful. Unless we had some proper weapons and armour, we could retake Grimdale and make it our true home.”
“Speaking of the town,” Raverad changed the subject as he glanced out the window. “I saw someone in dark clothing run by while I was outside. By the window, he fired an arrow at a zombie and killed it with great precision and skill.”
“Dark clothing?” Ezra seemed puzzled. “I don’t recall anyone here wearing dark clothing, let alone have the skill to kill zombies easily.”
“Really?” Raverad said. “Perhaps I should go check. Thank you so much for helping me, Ezra.”
“You’re welcome,” Ezra replied. As Raverad was about to leave, Ezra stopped him. “Just a moment,” he said. “There's one more thing I should warn you about. This city was raided by bandits several weeks ago, which is what weakened us. You had better watch yourself, as there may be one or two remaining. Our people certainly are too scared to leave their hiding places with them within the walls.”
Raverad nodded and then walked downstairs.

Chapter 4 - Encounter
It was so quiet, that even the gentle steps on gravel sounded like they would attract the zombies. If anything, it just made Raverad all the more paranoid. The first zombie he had met reacted to his voice. Thus, he assumed that the zombies could still hear.
Raverad never understood the art of necromancy. The people of Tristitia practice it all the time beneath a dense canopy to shield their hideous ways from the rest of society. However, there have been some outside works as well over the years. Mages of the wizard’s tower study it all the time, trying to find its secrets and origins. Many predict that it was a branch of the magical discipline of water because it associated with life and death itself. However, many more argue that it never originated from any godlike discipline, that is was a new fifth magical art without a patron. Raverad had seen the undead before the apocalypse. They were nothing more than simple flesh-beings that would fall inactive between a few seconds and several days depending on the mastery of its creator.
But this occurrence had something more. All of a sudden, the dead rose everywhere. It only took the bite of their infectious jaws to kill a living person and then reanimate his body. During the early outbreak, there had been rumors that those killed by any means whatsoever would turn anyways. Raverad had only witnessed the former and had no evidence in believing the latter. Nevertheless, this form of necromancy spread its curse and kept the dead on their feet. The Apostle had heard that the most powerful of necromancers could raise up to a dozen zombies at once but this happening has affected the whole region, maybe even the world.
A dreaded theory came upon Raverad as he thought about this, that a fifth god had arisen and had used the twisted art towards malefic ends. He shook his head at the thought. If such a god were to exist, why would they leave certain people alive? A god unable to enact its will was no god at all, especially when entirely unchallenged.
As Raverad walked deeper into the city, the church building was right in front of him. There was a fountain between him and the entrance. As he walked out of the alleyway, he noticed something at the corner of his eye. No, not something; someone.
At the porch of the building towards his left, there was a man wearing a guard’s chainmail chestplate. It was obvious that the stranger had looted it from a former guard since the armour set was incomplete, unless it was taken from him. Raverad had a hard time picturing such a scenario without the thief killing the man. He was short with long blonde hair coming out of the leather helmet he wore. His face bore a vicious grimace, glaring at the Apostle with an angry look, like drunk in the pub having a bad day. Definitely not as much of a friendly person as Ezra. Raverad was warned about possible bandits lurking in the town. He simply tried to avoid eye contact as he walked into the church.
The door that was supposed to bar the entrance was nowhere to be seen. Its hinges were still there, ruined when the door was busted open. Raverad wondered how the priest who owned the church had died. He had learned before that Apostles of Pulvia and Apostles of Therum both have made their homes here at least once in history, at different times of course. He was somewhat honored to be walking on the same plank floors that they have once tread on day after day. If only it were not at such a depressing time.
The first hallway was dimly lit by redstone torches. According to the lore of the gods, redstone material beneath the earth was made when God-Agni first met Therum, wrestling each other in a test of physical strength. It was Agni’s sweat that seeped into the very soils that Therum had shaped for years. The scientists of Byesford had taken samples and discovered their conductive properties. These torches, for example, seem to come alight when they come in contact with living or dead material, be that the skin of a human or wood of a tree. They did not illuminate as much as fire but they did not require actual burning, could be relit without using up the wood, and did not emit an unpleasant burning smell.
Raverad could see the podium of the priest straight ahead from the entrance. The hallway branched into three direction before it met the main chamber. As the Apostle walked closer, he could see the rows of chairs flanking the aisle in between. Much of the room was blue and white. Windows provided much sunlight to sustain visibility in the chamber. The back window was in the shape of a cross. The symbol was inherited for many unremembered aeons ago from a long lost culture. Its four arms now represented the four gods in unison as a whole.
Once Raverad passed the next doorway, with the door still intact but left open, he was flanked by two narrow staircases. It was then when he slowed his pace. He took small steps, each one with longer time intervals in between. Each time he passed by a new row of seats, he checked to see what was in between. No bodies. Just blood stains at least a few days old.
Up ahead, the path parted around the podium, flanking it with a few short steps to get onto the raised platform. Still treating the place respectfully, he took the rightmost way, walking around the podium. As he approached it, he noticed an open book on it. Raverad walked up to the book and was disgusted. Its exposed pages were soaked and emitted the stench of human urination. He dared not to touch it. The fall of Aeronaean had destroyed their faith in the gods. This was desecration on the holy tome; he would rather have seen it burned than have people show such disrespect just because they gave up. Raverad must keep such despairing thoughts eclipse hope, lest doubt crush his will to move on.
His gaze shifted towards an object just a short distance from the podium, hidden next to one of the seats. It was a rotting apple. Decay did not seem to disfigure it completely, but it could still be harmful to eat. Nevertheless, he grabbed it anyway, storing it in a small sack that hung from the hip of his tunic. He really needed to get a backpack or something to carry stuff with.
Looking up, he saw a balcony on the other side of the great room. It was darker up there; not much lighting. Raverad was curious to go upstairs. So far, he had not found any potions. Almost every church and holy monument, if not every, had a supply of potions. It had been said that the first potions were the works of alchemy by Pulvia himself. Noticing that the water could change its magical properties when mixed with certain ingredients, he had asked Therum to borrow samples of his land. If it were not for Therum’s acceptance, these potions could not ever have existed. It had been used for both ceremonial and medical use for many years, as these magical liquids have saved many from death’s clutches. Raverad had tasted the purest of healing potions before. When he was first initiated into officially becoming the Apostle of Agni, he had to drink a sample of a special potion, brewed from the sacred water in the Barathrum Caverns. It had tasted much better, and theoretically would heal much better, than the simple potions made from simple surface water. Hopefully, Raverad would find some potions in the church. It had been two months, so they likely could have been robbed already.
He made his way up the staircase to see open chests. Small insects crawled all over them as he took a few steps forwards. Cleaned out, he saw. They may have had the potions in them. Perhaps ingredients were available downstairs. Most people knew not how to make a potion. Therefore, Raverad suspected that the components could still be found and used to make more. A well was available outside. He could potentially restore Grimdale by offering his services once again. Not only will the people, the community, and the city be restored, but their faith. It may even be a start to restore the world itself.
Raverad turned around, smiling at the thought, when he suddenly found himself staring at the tip of an arrow, pulled back by a bow. It was aimed at him by none other than the guy with dark clothing. In fact, it was a young woman. The hood was not pulled up enough to completely cover her face. She looked to be in her early twenties. Her long, black hair made it easier for her to blend in with the dark. The Apostle noticed that she wore light chainmail beneath her cloak. Something bulged from her back. Unless it were a disfigurement, it was most likely a small backpack. Her facial expression did not make her seem like a malefic bandit, nor a desperate looter. Instead of an evil smirk or nervous visage, she stared at Raverad coldly.
The Apostle raised his hands up, revealing that he was unarmed. She did not move. He did not know what to do. Raverad decided to take a step back. The woman moved too, having her back face the end of a dead end hallway. The Apostle kept moving backwards, going towards the balcony. She started to lower her bow. Feeling safer, Raverad turned around and made his way down the staircase.
Perhaps she too was looking for potions. The stranger looked too well to lack food, water, and standard medical supplies. No weapons should be in the church either. With a threatening act like that, she was most likely searching for potions.
Once Raverad walked out of the main room, on the first floor, he turned to his left to walk towards the stairway that went into the basement. Once he was in the next room, an unseen figure leapt from a corner behind him. Raverad turned, reaching for his sword in order to react to immediate danger. The attacker’s hands gripped his arms too tightly for him to get his blade. At first, he thought it was a zombie. Staring at him, face to face, was that one man who he met outside. His eyes were wide, looking crazed. Raverad now noticed the two red, U-shaped symbols that were beneath his eyes. He did not recognize any significant meaning behind them in history.
The man’s eyebrows then looked threatening. “Who is she?” he hissed at the Apostle, salivation getting into Raverad’s face.
“I do not… I am not... “ the Apostle struggled to speak with the foul breath of this man in such close proximity.
“You are with her,” the stranger continued. “Who is she? What is she doing here?” There was a pause as the man growled a little. “Tell me!”
Raverad finally managed to push him away. The man stumbled backwards, his left leg especially unable to keep a footing. It may have been injured. As the stranger tried to get back up, Raverad tried to negotiate.
“Listen, I can help you with what you want and more,” he persuaded. “That leg is wounded, yes?”
Immediately after those words were spoken, the man was on his feet again. He drew a dagger from his sleeve. It was then that Raverad also pulled his wooden blade from its sheath. The foe charged, roaring at the top of his lungs. As the Apostle drew the sword, he cut the attacker’s swinging arm, causing him to let go of his weapon at the pain. But the enemy was not without strength, as he swung his left fist into Raverad’s face. The Apostle was knocked into a corner, dropping his sword.
His vision blurred as his mind reeled from the blow. It adjusted again and saw the enemy picking up his own knife. Raverad reached for his own sword, feeling the ground with his hand until he found the hilt.
Then the moans of zombies came from outside. All of a sudden, the stranger was tackled by a horde of undead. The man cried out, not just in pain, but in anger and defiance. Normally, the attack of zombies seemed horrific. This time, it made Raverad smile.
He stood up, quickly but quietly, trying not to alert the attacking zombies towards him. Raverad found his sword on the ground and reached for it. Suddenly, the man’s dagger flew into his open hand, impaling it into the wall. The Apostle could not help but to cry out in pain. Now, the zombies turned to Raverad. The corpse that once was the stranger now walked along with them as one of the undead. He only had enough time to pull the dagger out of his hand and bring it to bear in the fight.
Taking a swing, he cut one of the zombies in the face, making it fall a little back. The others came in front to take its place. It was then that the zombies were too close. Their claws were beginning to dig into Raverad’s flesh. Biting mouths were gnashing hungrily as they got closer to his skin.
All of a sudden, the designs of Agni on his flesh began to glow. His wound began to reknit… fast. He dropped the dagger as flames appeared in his hands. For a brief moment, his thoughts were his own, feeling hope that Agni had not yet abandoned him. Then, his mind was completely eclipsed by another. The God and Goddess themselves? No longer did he ponder, nor did he feel. All that he thought now was how to use the flames. As though he could his whole life, he forced the flames forwards, gushing the hordes in front of him. The fires licked the rotting flesh, burning each zombie with magical fires, and reducing them to ashes.
Once the flames died out, and the zombies dead, Raverad’s mind returned to him. He was awestruck by what happened. It was not like he had not done such a thing before. Only with his staff could he conjure fires on his foes. How he was able to do it now was….
The Apostle fell to the ground, losing consciousness.

Chapter 5 - Adventure Bound
Waking up, his blurred vision was nothing but green and brown. It definitely did not look like the inside of the church. As his vision adjusted, the shapes of trees appeared all around him. The skies were overcast. He felt his back resting uncomfortably on a tree trunk, upright.
Looking to his right, he saw someone was sitting next to him. It was that cloaked girl back from Grimdale. Raverad was suddenly alert, turning his head and surveying his surroundings. No zombies were close by, that was a good sign, but the city was nowhere to be seen. He looked back at the girl.
She was already standing up, digging through her small backpack. “Who are you?” she asked, without looking at him.
Raverad adjusted the way he sat. “My name is Raverad, Apostle of Agni….”
“That is not what I meant,” she interrupted, not looking directly at him. “What role do you have to play with in the grand scheme of things?”
The Apostle was confused. “Grand scheme?”
“You are not telling me that your little act in the church was a thing of chance, let alone an accident.” She unsheathed a small blade, examining it for a brief moment. Then, she crouched, staring into Raverad’s eyes with a threatening look. “Are you aligned with Crimson?”
Raverad could not hide his fear. Any wrong word and she would show no mercy in killing him. He took a deep breath. Instead of thinking of what to say to keep him alive, he spoke openly. “Crimson is as much a part of Agni as the God and Goddess are a part of each other,” his voice shook as he spoke. “I would not draw upon his hatred without absolutely needing to.”
The stranger fiddled with her knife as she delved into a thought. Then, she smiled. Raverad did not know if that assured him his safety or if he was doomed.
“If it would help you better understand me, I did not think it was possible to conjure my own flame spells without my staff,” he added. There was a pause as the girl began to frown again. “But I did not willingly call forth whatever helped me back there.”
She looked back up at Raverad. Then, she decided to stand up again. After a short pause, she put her dagger back in its sheath. With a sigh, she rummaged through her pack again and pulled out one of the potions. She then tossed it at Raverad, who caught it uneasily.
“I don’t know who you are, or what you will be,” she said, “but if you manage to find me again, then perhaps I could explain everything.”
Raverad looked beyond the surrounding forest. He was disappointed to not get any answers explaining much of what had happened. Rather than asking more questions, he simply said, “Thank you.”
By the time he gave his thanks, she was already disappearing behind the trees to the north. Raverad stood up and looked at the sun. It was just peaking over the trees to his left. Assuming it was still the morning, he headed in the direction of the sun.
Not long, he made it out of the forest. There was a river dividing the grassy patch he stood on and the sandy ground beyond. Raverad first took the time to go to the water and fill his water bottle. Then, he took a drink, and refilled again. He decided to walk along the river, in the same direction he was going, in hopes of finding something.
After a short walk, he could see a small bridge connecting two roads, one going south, the other north. Looking towards the desert, he saw a few buildings along the road, the closest one being a church. Turning his gaze to the north, he saw the road head into the forest, with trees flanking the gravel pathway. It seemed obvious to take the southern path, as it guaranteed shelter. Still, he did not want to encounter anything like the hot mess he was in back in Grimdale against that one bandit. Deciding to avoid the southern coast, he took his chances with the northern road.
In about an hour, Raverad saw the walls of a town ahead. Not only did it mean shelter, but also protection from the zombies. As he got closer, though, he noticed that part of the wall beside the entrance was blown open. There was a tall watchtower in the center. Across the town, there was a large manor. To his left and right, there were a few other buildings, but he could not tell what they were from the gates. According to a sign, this place was called Yawpton. Judging by the walls and the watchtower, this seemed like a fortified military town. Raverad hoped so; he needed better weapons against the zombies, or worse bandits.
As he walked in, he could see another large breach in the wall to the west. Worse still, there were zombies walking in an out of the open barrier. Raverad decided to avoid them by walking towards the rightmost building to him. He took careful, quiet steps away from the undead. The Apostle walked around the fence and into the building. There he looked around for any weapons and armour. There were none in the military chests. Empty. He figured that people would have taken them in need of protection. Raverad then climbed up a small set of spiral stairs to reach a small room. There was a woodcutter’s axe laying there. It was not much, but it was at least another weapon in case he loses his sword.
Suddenly, he heard he heard voices outside. Raverad tip-toed downstairs and then leaned against the wall next to the closest exit. Taking a risk, he peaked around the wall and looked outside. A trio of mail-clad warriors, one of which wore an iron helmet, were walking in to yawpton. The two without the helmet walked beside each other, carrying iron swords that once belonged to soldiers. Between them, they were holding a prisoner, squirming and kicking to try and get out. There was a bag over his head, and his hands were tied behind his back. What were bandits doing with a prisoner? Was the survival gear he carried not enough for them?
Behind the two bandits with the prisoner, the leader with the iron helmet stepped forwards with a raised hand. Raverad could hear faint chatter, but he thought he heard the leader tell his minions to stop. The two bandits obeyed and stopped walking once they reached the western side of the watchtower. Then, the bandit leader pushed the captive to the ground with his foot. The Apostle took careful steps closer. He could not just let an innocent in the hands of some bandits. As he approached them stealthily, their conversations were clearer to him.
"Where is Sydney?" the leader said. "He was supposed to meet us here after he was done with Grimdale.”
"Probably caught up in a fight and died," the weakest looking henchman replied.
"Or he is delaying because he wants to get another sporting kill in," the last one spat. “After all, many long time members of Uprising have descended down a savage path, straying from Lucas’s intentions. I feel sorry for him having to deal with those kind of bandits.”
Raverad was by the wall of the watchtower, definitely out of sight of the bandits. Many thoughts and questions swirled in his head. Sydney must have been the one who attacked him earlier in Grimdale. What was Uprising? Who was Lucas? Why did that last person say the word ‘bandit’ with a disgusted tone? These definitely were not the same bandits he knew existed during the Bandit Wars.
“Kronox, can't we just kill him now?” complained the weaker one. “His moaning and grunting is annoying me."
“Just like Sydney, you are," replied Kronox, the one who wore the iron helmet. “Still, I guess he won’t stop resisting.” The Apostle peaked around the corner to see Kronox draw an iron sword.
Once he pulled the sword back ready to swing, Raverad came up from behind and cut his arm. Kronox pulled his blade from the prisoner’s throat, dropping his sword. The other two bandits jumped backwards. The weaker looking one drew his bow while the last one charged Raverad. When the archer fired, the Apostle dove out of the way. Then he heard the archer bandit cry out in pain.
Raverad, trying to recover from his fall, glanced briefly at the weaker bandit getting attacked by zombies. There were two biting into his neck and a third digging its fingernails into the skin of his forehead.
Then, Raverad was kicked in the stomach by the third bandit. The Apostle rolled away from the attacker intentionally as the bandit missed when he tried to deliver the killing blow. Raverad stood up again with his sword in hand. The bandit was already running towards him, but Raverad jumped to the side to avoid the blade. As he passed by, Raverad swung the sword at his arm. The bandit dropped his sword and tumbled to the ground. Raverad ran over to grab the iron sword, but noticed that both he and the bandit had it gripped tightly. Like children fighting over a toy, Raverad and the bandit tugged at the iron sword. The Apostle felt his fingers giving in, and it did not seem like the bandit was getting tired of the tug-of-war.
Suddenly, an arrow seemed to fly from a random direction. Thinking that the arrow was intended for him, Raverad leapt to the side. The sword managed to stay in his hands. Then, he saw the bandit that he took the sword from had his hand on his arm with the arrow through it. Raverad looked around, scanning his surroundings to find the archer. There was no one else to be seen.
The weak archer bandit was now a zombie, walking with the hordes that killed him. Kronox was pitted against these hordes, duel wielding war axes against them. He sure had a lot of weapons on him. The captive was trying to cut himself free with the Apostle's old weapon. Raverad ran over to the prisoner and cut him loose with the iron sword. Then, he removed the bag over his head.
The prisoner's dark brown hair waved as he frantically looked all around him. His eyes were wide with panic. He took the sword and stood up, pointing it at Raverad.
“Where are they?” he shouted.
“The leader is still alive, one of them is dead, and the other is….” Raverad began. As his turned around, he saw the last bandit trying to run away from Yawpton. The former captive tried to go after him but Raverad pulled him back. “We chase him, we may not catch him. Stay here, and we can get their leader.”
Raverad felt a shadow loom over him. He turned around to see Kronox right behind him with a sword raised, covered in the blood of zombies.
“Aaaaugh!” he shouted as he swung his sword. Raverad jumped backwards, feeling the sword cut across the leather he wore. Fortunately, it did not cut through his flesh. “You will pay for this!” Kronox shouted.
Raverad tried to attack him, but he flanked the same way the Apostle dodged the other bandit’s attack. The Apostle managed to meet the bandit’s weapons with his own sword, blocking them from doing major damage. They met each other with clashing blades, each swing elegantly blocking each other.
Then, Kronox headbutted Raverad, causing him to fall to the ground. The iron helmet brought about the worst of the pain. The Apostle dropped his sword and lay on the ground, unable to stand back up quickly.
Fortunately, his new friend intervened, driving his blade into the bandit leader. The sword punctured through a weak point in the mail armour, where it seemed a zombie tugged at a part of it. Blood came out like a breached dam. The weapon was reddened. Kronox fell to the ground, heavily breathing. He dropped his axes, no longer able to fight. The former captive withdrew his sword, spat into the face of the leader, and left him to bleed out. He walked over to Raverad, helping him stand up.
“Let’s get out of here before he turns,” he said.
Raverad stopped him. “No, we need his armour,” the Apostle responded. “You go find the other dead bandit and try to get his armour.”
The stranger nodded and walked away. Raverad walked towards the dead Kronox, who was now standing again, but as a zombie. The undead bandit ran towards the Apostle, still holding tight to his sword. Were the zombies using blades as weapons too? Raverad knocked the sword from its hand, took a few steps backwards, and then punched the tip of his blade into its neck. The zombie Kronox fell to the ground, now truly dead.
Raverad hesitated at first, feeling dirty about looting the dead. It was always his place to honor the dead. He shook his head. How could one honor a bandit like this poor fool. Raverad pulled the mail from the leather under-armour and began to outfit himself with it. It was a little too big for him, but it would be sufficient protection from zombies and bandits alike. Finally, he took the iron helmet from the corpse and put it on his head. It had been a while since he actually wore this kind of armour, and yet it only felt like yesterday.
He turned to meet the new friend he made, who walked from one of the buildings wearing the mail armour of the archer bandit.
“My thanks,” he said.
“No problem,” Raverad replied. The two stood face to face. The other man was the first to extend his arm.
“My name is Sean,” he said.
Raverad responded by shaking his hand and saying, “I am Raverad, Apostle of Agni. It’s too bad we could not have met in better conditions. So what in the name of Agni is going on.”

Chapter 6 - Uprising
“Have you never encountered or even heard of Uprising?” Sean asked as though Raverad was out of the loop.
"Uprising? I heard the bandits mention it. Is it some sort of clan?" Raverad replied.
They were outside of Yawpton now, figuring the town was too dangerous to have a conversation in. The town walls were just a short distance away. They were sitting by a tree just off of the road.
“Yes, Uprising is the name of their clan," he replied. "I returned to my hometown, Portsmouth to mourn for the loss of my family a month after the outbreak. There, I met a group of survivors who called themselves the Equilibrium Clan. They were bent on keeping the bandits away from the southern coastline towns, and they said Uprising was the most infamous out of all of them."
“How did you manage to get captured if you were a part of a group?” the Apostle asked. “Did all of Equilibrium get wiped out or something?”
“No, I left them because they were a pretty messed up bunch,” Sean answered. “They were so overzealous about fighting the bandits that they would subjugate anyone along the southern coast who would not join them. I left because I overheard plans on sieging Romero in order to force its occupants to join them. This was about a few days ago. Then, I was captured when I was heading to Grimdale, which was not Equilibrium held. I spent the night in one of the desert forts when the Uprising members found me. They had gotten pretty deep south for a large bandit clan. I would suspect that they do not have a massive army here, but even a few bandits nowadays could spell doom to a loner.
Raverad looked back at Yawpton. "So there are more around?" he said. “What should we do?”
“Well, we can’t just go after them,” Sean replied. “The north has more zombies than down here in the south, and the only living survivors up there are bandits. I definitely don’t want to go back to Equilibrium. Did you come from Grimdale?”
“Yes, and it is a good place to survive in,” Raverad answered. “I made a friend there named Ezra. If you were planning on going over there, tell him that you know Raverad.”
“Wait, why did you leave?” Sean asked.
“Long story short, I encountered a bandit who was sneaking around in there,” Raverad explained. Sean looked disappointed. “I said it was a good place, but it’s not as secure as it used to be.”
“So where are you headed then?” Sean asked.
“I was going east, to travel to the Cole Kingdom region. That was my home, and I wanted to return.”
“Well, stay away from the coastal road,” Sean said. “That’s my advice because Equilibrium holds most of it.”
“I understand, thanks for warning me,” Raverad replied. The two of them stood up and shook each others hands.
“Kronox, this is Malphus,” said a voice. Raverad pulled out his sword, wondering where it came from. Sean pointed at the communicator strapped to Raverad’s new chainmail armour. “Kronox, get your men over to Camp Bell immediately!” the communicator buzzed. Sean took the communicator from Raverad. “Kronox, respond!”
“Yes, we’re coming,” Sean spoke into the communicator, making an excellent impersonation of Kronox’s voice.
There a pause when the communicator went silent. Raverad stared at Sean, impressed with his ability to mimic the bandit leader’s voice.
"I had some practice while trying to annoy Kronox on the way over here," he said with a smirk. Then, his smile faded as quickly as it appeared. “But how did they get to Camp Bell? How did they manage to sneak past the defenses of Equilibrium."
“I doubt Equilibrium has enough people to have an entire border patrol,” Raverad said.
“True, the Uprising bandits may have climbed over the mountains,” Sean assumed. “Still, like I said before, Equilibrium is at least preventing any large scale invasions from happening.”
“Doesn’t Equilibrium hold Camp Bell?” Raverad asked.
“No, it still is owned by some soldiers that have been there since the outbreak,” Sean answered. “Thus far, Equilibrium has failed to take that military camp from them.”
“Perhaps I should help defend it on the way to the east,” the Apostle said.
“You are going to need my help,” Sean insisted.
“I’m not asking you to come with me. You can go to Grimdale if you wish.”
“I’m choosing to help you out. Besides, I can guide you between the defenses of Equilibrium.”
“Very well then, we will go together to help out Camp Bell,” Raverad said.
Sean and Raverad traveled together through the woods, heading east. They would stay in the forests, avoiding the places that once held civilization. Raverad noticed that there was not much to worry about in the wilderness. Neither bandit nor zombie was to be seen. It was strange that the once shelters of humanity have now become their death traps, and that the untamed wild lands were the unscathed sanctuaries of the apocalypse.

It was late afternoon by the time they saw the tower of the farm. Blood spattered and the ground littered with zombie and soldier bodies. Raverad began to wonder if they were too late. He and Sean snuck up against the wall and stayed close to it as they moved along. The military camp was in sight and hope seemed lost. A bandit in full iron armour, who Raverad assumed was Malphus, stood triumphantly on the decks of the buildings. Three of the surrounding towers had a bandit in each one.
"You sure you want to fight against them?" Raverad asked Sean.
"Apostle, shame on you," he teased back. "I thought you were one of the faithful."
Raverad smiled and said, "You’re right, friend. I guess this shall be victory or death. Even if we die, let them taste our rage and those who we kill shall be damned by Agni forever."
Raverad drew my sword as Sean pulled out his bow. Hidden from sight, Sean shot an arrow at one of the bandit's arm. Suddenly, the whole team was alert as they drew their swords and bows. The leader, who Raverad still presumed was Malphus, drew his sword, which reflected the light of the sun up high. The other bandits remained in their towers and tried to shoot Sean. Raverad and his friend ducked their heads behind the tower walls, hearing the arrows strike the wood between them and the bandits.
When the Apostle peaked again, he could see that one of the mail bandit archers, who was hit by Sean’s arrow, was tending to his wound. It was difficult to see where he was hit from Raverad’s perspective. The other two archer bandits were in the towers, about fire another volley. Once again, Raverad pulled his head back from exposure when the arrows were released. That was a closer one. Looking again, he saw Malphus striding closer towards them. Accompanying him was that one bandit who escaped Yawpton. His arm seemed able to carry a sword, though it was dragged rather than held in the air like Malphus’s weapon.
Sean aimed his bow around the corner again and fired at Malphus' knee. The surviving bandit of Yawpton looked at Sean and Raverad and growled, "You again!" The Apostle drew his iron sword as the bandit charged.
“Stand back,” Raverad warned Sean, who did just that. The Apostle took a few steps back himself from the corner of the tower. He was fortunate to do so.
The returning bandit came around the corner, smashing his sword into the wall, expecting the Apostle to be leaning against it. Raverad drove the blade forwards at the belly of the bandit. It managed to pierce through his mail armour. I looked at the bandit’s face as he fell to the ground, clutching onto his bleeding wound. Rather than an expression of fear or worry of death, his face was as spiteful as the Red Demon’s battle helm. Raverad retracted his blade, only to feel Malphus push him away from the wounded bandit.
Malphus swung his sword down at Raverad while he was on the ground. The Apostle managed to block it, but the force of the blade’s clashing against each other disarmed Raverad. The bandit leader was then shot in the armpit by Sean’s bow. He growled in pain and backed away. Sean tried to shoot him again, but Malphus hid around the corner. Sean missed the bandit leader with his arrow, but accidentally hit the wounded bandit in the nose with his arrow. The bandit fell dead backwards, but reanimated as a zombie immediately when he hit the ground. It took only a second for the zombie form to stand up again. Raverad was still on the ground, staring at the zombie while his hand was frantically feeling the ground for his sword. Sean reached for arrows in his quiver, but none were left. Raverad raised his legs to kick back the zombie, but an arrow came from behind him, striking the zombie in the eye. The Apostle stood up and grabbed his sword. Both he and Sean turned around to see a woman in a medic's military leather armour. She carried a bow with her, but did not aim at Raverad or Sean. That was good news, she was not a bandit.
When Raverad peaked around the tower again, he saw Malphus limping to his healer. Sean, who was given a few arrows by their new friend, tried to stop him. He pulled back his bowstring when suddenly, he was hit by the wounded bandit archer from one of the towers. He fell backwards behind the tower. Arrow was stuck in the shoulder. The medic girl pulled her own arrow back on the bowstring of her bow, peeked around the corner, and fired into the tower with the bandit who shot Sean. The bandit was killed and turned into a zombie. Suddenly, the other bandit archers were focused on the zombie form of their fallen comrade.
The woman knelt beside Sean and began to apply a bandage on the bleeding area where Sean was hit. Raverad gripped his sword tightly. He felt the rush of adrenaline overcome him as he turned towards the fight again. The Apostle charged Camp Bell.
“Wait!” he heard the medic call from behind him, but he ignored her. The Apostle knew the arrogant way of bandits, and they would accept a challenge to a duel if Raverad seemed like he meant to
“Agni damns you!” Raverad shouted as he ran towards the bandits.
Arrows came from the bandit towers almost immediately. Raverad slid downwards, his feet kicking dirt as he ducked beneath the arrows coming at him. The Apostle had to stand back up again. Looking up into the bandit towers, he saw the archers with arrows pulled back on their bowstrings, but they did not fire.
“Wait!” Malphus shouted from among them. “He wants to fight, he wants to fight.”
The bandit leader walked out of the gates. His knee and arm no longer had arrows stuck through them, but Raverad could notice that his movements around those joints were a little stiff. The Apostle knew he was going to be disgraceful when wounded, even though his wounds were stitched up. He thought he had a chance.
Then, hope soon drained away from Raverad when he saw Malphus draw his sword. He did not notice it before in the bright light, but now, he felt like he would have no chance of winning. The blade that the bandit leader wielded was impossible: a sword carved from diamond. There was no way that any society before the outbreak could carve a blade out of diamond, let alone a simple bandit. It must have been a trick of the light. Raverad's eyes followed the blade. It looked all too much like diamond.
Raverad and Malphus circled each other counterclockwise. Each of them were waiting for the other to make the first move. Their eyes locked, except when Raverad glanced at his opponent’s sword. With the armour, Malphus was a terrifying figure up close. His face was in a snarling grimace, but had a smirk behind it somewhere. He probably thought the Apostle had no chance of beating him.
The Apostle was suddenly distracted. From the corner of his eye, a few zombies came wandering from where he and Sean came from.
Then, his eyes quickly caught sight of the swinging diamond sword. He ducked backwards, so low that he fell to the floor. Fortunately, the blow missed, but Malphus was already bringing his sword back. Raverad rolled away from where he lay before the blade could hit him. He did not see the sword cut into the topsoil. The Apostle felt dirt hit him from the resulting blow. He managed to stand back up again before Malphus could deliver the next swing.
Raverad ran behind the bandit leader, dodging the diamond sword a third time. His own wooden blade inflicted a glancing hit against Malphus’s armour, which did not wound him at all. The Apostle looked back quickly, seeing the diamond blade coming towards his face. Raverad ducked, feeling his leather helmet get knocked off by the sword. He was glad it was not his head.
The Apostle saw his target now. Raverad drove his stone sword beneath the iron chestplate. He felt the blade get repelled by some under armour behind the chestplate. Still, it forced Malphus to stagger. He then took the opportunity to strike Malphus’s sword arm. The bandit leader was quick to block the attack with his diamond sword. The foe’s physical strength was greater than Raverad’s. This time, the Apostle staggered from the blow.
It was his turn to try and block the following strike. Their blades clashed again, but this time, the defender was knocked back. Raverad fell to the ground again. Fortunately, Malphus was also recovering from the strain on his arm. Before the bandit leader could raise his blade again, the Apostle gave a kick with both legs into the groin. This forced Malphus to stagger back again and allowed Raverad to return to his feet.
The bandit leader ignored the pain faster than the Apostle anticipated. Raverad jumped back, avoiding another swing by Malphus. This repeated a few more times until they were by the northeast tower of Camp Bell. The Apostle then chose to strike immediately after the fifth swing, striking the bandit in the shoulder.
Malphus ignored the blow as he swung his diamond sword into Raverad’s left side. This time, it hit him; the blade’s edge tore through mail and bit into his flesh. Fortunately, it was only a flesh wound, but the pain began to reduce the Apostle’s graceful advantage. Raverad resisted the urge to drop his sword and grip his left arm in attempt to numb the pain.
Now, both the Apostle and the bandit leader were standing face to face again. Their little combat ended like the end of the first round in a sword duel. Malphus was bending a little, feeling pain in his knees, belly, and groin. Raverad’s left arm stung from the bite of that diamond sword.
“You’re an elusive little bastard,” Malphus said. “But I will cut you down eventually. You will be slowing with every blow.”
“Try me,” Raverad taunted. “I’ve trained with children who knew how to swing a sword better than you can!”
Malphus roared at the insult, raising his sword in an attempt to strike. His legs pushed him off of the ground and towards Raverad. The Apostle did not react until the blade began to arc downwards. It was then that Raverad leapt backwards, dodging the diamond sword easily. Malphus had no time to raise his sword again. Raverad immediately propelled himself forwards when his feet touched the ground. His iron sword swung at the bandit leader’s arm. The blade dented the armour, but did not penetrate nor did it seem to do anything more than have Malphus react to the glancing blow. His diamond sword did not swing, but the elbow of the blade wielding arm smacked into Raverad’s back. The Apostle was knocked face first into the chainlink fence. His recovery time was too slow. Surely, Malphus was just a second away from ending his life.
Suddenly, he heard an arrow fly, followed by Malphus’s cry of agony. Raverad turned around, seeing the seemingly unstoppable Malphus stumble. The arrow was stuck through his left shoulder, and seemed to go deep between the armour plating and into his upper body. His breathing was heavy as he held himself up with his diamond sword like an old man would with his walking stick.
Raverad looked towards where he traced the arrow was fired. There, among the trees in the distant east, stood a cloaked figure with a bow in his hands. His face was covered by the hood completely. The Apostle knew what he was: a ranger.
The newcomer fired his bow once again, this time at the bandit in the tower right next to Raverad. It hit the bandit in the lower body, but only wounded him. He fell backwards down the staircase.
Sean and the medic woman came from the bell farm, taking the opposite flank. When the bandits in the other towers saw this, they left their posts. All of the enemies, with the exception of the wounded one in the tower behind Raverad, ran to Malphus, forming a tight defense. Two of them had swords in one hand and holding onto Malphus with their other arm. They helped carry Malphus towards the road. The other two bandits had their bow strings pulled, aiming in every direction where there was a foe. As they retreated, the ranger, Sean, and the medic gathered around Raverad. The bandits disappeared from view once they passed the forest.
Raverad heard moans coming from the bandit behind him. He turned to the ranger and said, “Keep watch, please.” The Apostle then spoke to Sean and the medic. “Sean, you keep watch too.” Sean nodded. “And you,” Raverad spoke to the woman, “help me with the wounded bandit here.”
Raverad and the medic climbed up the chain-link fence surrounding Camp Bell in order to reach the bandit faster. The two of them approached their fallen foe. He had a freshly bloodied bandage covering his wound. His eyes were tightly shut as were his teeth. The mail hood had fallen, revealing his short, blonde hair. Then, his eyes opened.
“What is your name?” Ravarad asked.
"Why should I tell you?" The bandit's face showed anger as he complained. "You're no different than the rest of them. You ruined my chance for vengeance on those who killed my family. Curse you! Curse...."
Ravarad knocked him out before he could finish ranting. Part of it was anger, but most of it was in order to not attract any zombies. The medic knelt down beside the bandit and began to inspect the arrow wound. She began to cut off most of the arrow sticking out.
"My name is Jenni by the way," she said, keeping her eyes on her work. "Thanks for helping me."
“No problem,” Raverad said. “You helped us too, so we thank you as well.”

Chapter 7 - Request for Aid
Raverad carried the body of one of the twice slain soldiers that defended Camp Bell. Three corporals, a sergeant, and a lieutenant. Each of them had deep knife wounds on the left temples of their heads. That was the mercy killing of those about to turn.
Jenni directed the Apostle where the bodies of her last two comrades were. She carried the one called Dave back to Camp Bell while Raverad brought the lieutenant, Calvin. They lined them up with the bodies of the other three soldiers. Several holes were dug by the barn. These would be their graves.
The Apostle gently placed Calvin's body right beside Dave's. This was what Raverad did often as one of his duties, especially during the Great War. While the Apostle of Pulvia was the one in charge of putting the more important individuals to rest, every priest had his duties to bury and honor the dead. However, Raverad had no interest in doing the same for the fallen bandits. They did not deserve such a basic privilege.
He looked up at Jenni, who stared at the dead with a face full of depression. "Many zombies we killed were once civilians," she said without looking up. "We never did this for them like we did before the outbreak, even if they were strangers."
"These people were the ones you fought beside since the outbreak, perhaps even before," Raverad said. "It would make sense to honor your closest friends this way."
"Still, we're not used to it,” Jenni replied. “I never expected this to happen. Every single one of them were with me from the beginning. I guess I knew that we would all die at some point in time. Perhaps one by one. The thought soon became a blur and had been until now. But I never expected everyone I knew to die in one day. I….” Her voice trailed off. She could not find any more words to speak.
“Care to join me in a prayer for your fallen?” Raverad asked her.
Still not looking up, she responded, “I think I will sit out, thanks.”
Yet, she did not. As Raverad spoke his words of faith to the gods, Jenni did not leave the bodies. Her mouth moved, lips following the phrases of the prayer, but no voice projected from her throat.

After burying the dead, Raverad walked back to Camp Bell. At the front gates, Sean was waiting for him. The ranger, who he still had not talked to yet, was just standing in the middle of the road, staring towards the north as though waiting for something. Their prisoner was awake, sitting on the steps in the tower he was found in. Raverad was not able to see his face, but he could tell by looking at his tense shoulders and arched back that he was uneasy. When the Apostle was a few meters away, Sean walked closer to him and began to talk.
“We should let him go,” he told Raverad. The Apostle raised an eyebrow. “I spoke to him a few minutes ago. He was not like the other bandits. Apparently his family was slaughtered by soldiers at the Yawpton logging camp. The Uprising clan promised him vengeance when they found him.”
“If we release him, how do you know he will not return to his clan and inform them about us?” Raverad questioned.
“Malphus and his group already escaped,” Sean answered. “It’s too late to stop them now. Releasing Joshua won’t matter.”
“Joshua?”
“That’s his name.”
“Well, if Joshua returns to his clan, that would be one more enemy that we have to fight if we encounter them again,” Raverad argued.
“I’m sure he won’t go back, Raverad,” Sean said. “We can’t just hold him prisoner forever. Equilibrium is bound to come by and find out what happened here. Forcing him to stay could only make him hate us more, and perhaps may turn to Equilibrium, or even back to his own clan. We are not alive to bring justice. Let him go.”
The Apostle was silent for a moment, contemplating over the issue. Sean’s reasoning was sound. “Very well,” he finally said. “Tell him he could leave at any time.”
“Thank you, Apostle,” Sean greatfuly said. He turned around to walk into Camp Bell, but before he walked through the gates, he twirled with one foot in a semi-circle, once again facing Raverad. “One more thing. I also talked to the ranger. He wanted to speak to you personally.”
As Sean turned back to stride into Camp Bell, Raverad turned to see the ranger. He wondered why he wanted to be spoken to. Did he know the ranger? Raverad never had any personal interactions with any individual member of the Ranger Corps before the outbreak. He walked over to the cloaked figure.
His face did not show. That was what made Raverad most uneasy. He had seen the rangers before. They were all hooded, keeping much of their faces concealed. In battle, they fought like living shadows, using stealth and agility as an ally more so than the armour that soldiers and bandits would wear. The fact that they did not need much to be deadly assassins was enough to make those who knew them to shiver.
Raverad was one of them. He did not seem them in battle much before, but when he did, it was like they were not even human. In addition, he never spoke directly to any of them before. This was the first time.
When the Apostle walked right next to his silent savior, the ranger did not make any bodily reaction. While his robes were fighting northwards away from the ocean breeze behind him, the ranger’s posture was an unmoving statue.
“You’re welcome for me saving you and your friends,” the ranger spoke. It was so sudden, Raverad flinched a little. “I request something from you though.” The ranger turned to Raverad. The hood remained low enough to cast a deep shadow over what would be the ranger’s face. The Apostle could barely see the outline of his lower jaw move when he spoke again. “My name is Pyros, former member of the Rangers.” He and Raverad shook hands.
“I am very thankful for you saving my life when I was fighting Malphus,” Raverad said. “Your skill with a bow is rather astonishing. I have forgotten what it was like to see a ranger in action.”
A thought dawned on Raverad. He remembered an arrow firing at Yawpton, which hit a bandit’s arm when they were struggling over a sword. The arrow came from seemingly nowhere, but hit the bandit with much precision.
“Was it you who also fired the arrow at Yawpton?” Raverad asked Pyros.
“Indeed I was,” he replied. Although Raverad did not see it, he knew Pyros grinned by listening to the sound of his voice.
“Again, thank you very much, sir,” Raverad said.
“Don’t call me sir,” Pyros responded. This time, by the sound of his voice, Raverad knew the smile was gone. “In this world, we don’t need to address each other with formalities any more.”
“I understand,” Raverad said before apologizing. “So, have you been following us this whole time?” The ranger nodded. “Why?”
“I need your aid,” he said. “You and your friends. I am only asking. Know that this journey will be perilous, and perhaps we may all die. However, I believe it is of the greatest importance.”
Raverad did not know whether or not to trust the ranger simply because he was being really honest. “Why us.” He asked.
“I have been roaming the western landscape for the past few weeks,” he said. “Many of the people I have seen were either a part of a clan or too cowardly to leave their shelters. You and your friend Sean were the first I’ve seen to travel the landscape on your own. I can’t trust clans, and I can’t rely on simple survivors to help me. If you and your friends were open to help out, we may accomplish much.”
“That would have to depend on what we are doing,” Raverad said. “I think it would be best to have everyone participating in this conversation. We should tell the others to gather around.”
“Not here though,” Pyros replied. “Uprising may come back at any time, or perhaps Equilibrium might stop by. We should head to someplace isolated, where they can’t find us.”
“Very well, I will inform the others,” the Apostle said.
He walked away from Pyros, heading towards Camp Bell. Jenni was with Sean and Joshua now. The medic was helping Joshua by replacing his bandage. Raverad approached them, and each one looked up at him.
“Pyros has something to discuss with us,” Raverad said. “We should get out of this place so neither Uprising nor Equilibrium catches us off guard.”
“I know where we could go,” Jenni said as she finished up with Joshua’s new bandage. “In case something went wrong in Camp Bell, we would go to an emergency fort within the forest. It’s far from the road and has lots of food over there to sustain us if we needed to lay low for long. I think that could be a good place to go.”
“Any objections?” Sean asked the whole group. Everyone gave him a look that told him, ‘obviously not.’ “Very well, we should get out of here as fast as possible."
Jenni took out a bandage from her pack and gave it to Joshua. Sean returned their prisoner’s belongings back to him.
“Good luck,” Sean told Joshua.
Raverad noticed a look of shock in Joshua’s eyes. He seemed surprised by the fact that they were letting him go. The man gave no thanks, neither did he spit curses. He just sat there with his stuff in his lap.
The Apostle, Jenni, and Sean were just about to walk away when Joshua called out, “Wait!” The three of them turned to him. Joshua was standing up. “I would like to come with you,” he said. “I can be of help with whatever it is you’re doing.”
Before Raverad could open his mouth to question him, Sean said, “Of course you may come with us.” The Apostle was about to argue, but stopped himself from speaking. Sean had convinced him that Joshua would inflict no harm to them.
They met up with Pyros on the road and the five of them made their way into the forest with Jenni leading the way. Each of them briefly stopped by a small pond to fill their water bottles.
As he traveled with the others among the trees, Raverad took the time to enjoy the moment of respite. The rustle of trees and bushes gossiped with each other over the wind that carried their voices. There was serine calamity here in the middle of a world full of undead. He wondered why the hordes stay closer to the ruined cities. It would seem the wilderness was the only place left untouched by the undead.
Eventually, there was a small clearing with an isolated fort. They all halted when they saw a wandering zombie walking by the entrance. It did not notice them. The fiend just stumbled into the fort aimlessly. Before it could disappear from line of sight, an arrow went through its head. After Pyros lowered his bow, the group headed inside.
Once they all entered, they barricaded the opening with wire from the chests. Everyone climbed upstairs where there was no rooftop. They sat in a half circle, their backs against the walls. The sun was no longer in view. It was behind the west mountain now. During these last hours of light, the group rationed some of the food stored in this fort and Pyros began to share his story.
“Uprising is a dire threat indeed,” Pyros began. “They stand as the most powerful bandit clan in the region. While their numbers have dwindled over the past month, they still remain as a strong power. But I am not here to just fight Uprising.”
Curiosity sparked in everyone’s eyes, especially those of Raverad, as their gaze gravitated towards the cowl that covered Pyros’s face.
“There are a few individuals in Uprising who worship the Red Demon,” the ranger said. “Likely without their leader’s knowing it.”
There was a short pause. The sentence hanged in the air. People exchanged glances with each other, silently sharing their wonder of what that meant. All of them turned their heads towards Raverad, who simply stared at Pyros.
“Many bandits worship the Red Demon,” the Apostle said. “They see Crimson as a deity of strength to call upon.”
“Not since the outbreak though,” Joshua replied. “Many people, even bandits, abandoned the thought of gods and god-like beings existing. I never worshipped the Red Demon, and I never even knew there were worshippers in the clan.”
“Not only that, but Crimson was also responsible for the outbreak itself,” Pyros added.
“Impossible,” the Apostle responded. “The Red Demon is bound with the power of fire magic. Necromancy is the indirect fusion discipline of all four prime disciplines of magic. Or has that theory gone down the drain?"
There was another moment of silence. Some people had raised eyebrows. Others exchanged glances. Pyros, even though Raverad could not see his face, did not seem convinced.
“However,” Raverad continued after thinking to himself, “Crimson is a divine being so he does have the power to accomplish such a feat. He has overstepped himself several in ancient history. I guess there is every possibility that he could be behind this whole mess. But I’m still not convinced, Pyros. How could you be sure?”
“I have witnessed things,” he answered. “I’ve… confronted them myself. You will have to trust my word. I would not be asking for your help if this threat wasn’t real.”
“Proof would be nice,” Raverad said. “But I can trust your word. Tell me, I mean, us more.”
“I’ve been tracking those few among Uprising who are under the Red Demon’s servitude,” Pyros continued. “Recently, I have figured out what their next course of action is. We will intercept them and stop them.”
“How could we even stop them?” Sean said. “We would be dealing with something potentially beyond our… ‘mortal bounds.’”
“I don’t think Crimson’s strength is at any omnipotent peak yet,” Pyros said. “If we could defeat him before he rises again, we won’t have to deal with him when we can’t. So, are you all with me?”
“Aye,” Raverad was the first one to respond.
“Yes,” Joshua was next.
Sean and Jenni simply nodded.
“Very well,” Pyros said. “We should get some sleep before we travel northwards. I’ll keep watch.”

The other three fell asleep first. Raverad was awake for a short while. He just lied there on the cold stone floors. His eyes stared at Pyros, who was standing on the highest point of the tower, watching the forest as some grim sentinel. The Apostle could trust Pyros’s word. After all, he did say, ‘if we are to defeat him before he rises again.’” That would only mean that the ranger has faced Crimson before. Raverad fell asleep with the thought very much alive in his mind.

Chapter 8 - The Route North
The next morning, everyone ate another ration before journeying north. They followed the northward road but avoided walking on it in case trouble came by. Not many zombies were around so they were easy to avoid. There were no other people on the open road as well. So far so good.
While traveling, they came across the small town of Huntsgrove. It would have been a good place to loot. Unfortunately, it was occupied by Equilibrium. Thanks to Sean's information, the group did not walk blindly in there. They managed to flank the town, avoiding hostile conflict.
As they crossed into snow-lands, the group reached Ridgeville. Surprisingly, Equilibrium did not occupy this town. However, it seemed to not be abandoned for too long, meaning it was occupied at some point until recently. Sean had said that Equilibrium did own Ridgeville a week ago. What happened to them, he knew not. The supplies seemed to have been withdrawn in a hurry. Fortunately, there was still stuff left. The bakery had more than enough to give a full sized meal for everyone. They all happily feasted that night. No troubles.
The next day, the group traveled Whitehaven to stock up on more food and civilian supplies. Sean almost got himself killed by a horde while looting a house alone. Fortunately, Joshua, who was really good with a bow and managed to draw the undead away from Sean. Raverad decided to plan a fighting organization in case they ran into more trouble. Sean and the Apostle would be swordsmen while Joshua would be a supporting fire archer. Jenni was our healer, but she was also good with a bow. Pyros stayed to the sides and served as a scout.
They ventured further into the snowy landscapes to a place called Devil's Castle. Jenni said that she was recruited there and that there may be some excellent military gear.
The group arrived when the clouds began to roll overhead. The walls were knocked down and the place crawled with as many zombies as Yawpton. Pyros went to the highest point to inspect the area all at once. Jenni and Joshua searched for chests on the walls and kept an eye on the undead below. Raverad and Sean looked for loot at ground level and used their blades to slay zombies silently. If they got into trouble, the archers on the walls would provide support.
Sean and Raverad found their way into a prison block. The room was dimly lit by a single torch. Some of the cells were busted open while others locked the undead inside. The Apostle noticed that there was wire tied around where the locks were. Someone was here recently, trying to keep the undead inside. Whether they were friendly or hostile, he did not want to miss them.
Sean found a chest that had an iron chestplate. "We're probably lucky to find something like this," he said. "You should have it."
"Why me?" Raverad asked. "We should give it to someone whose combat skill may not be enough to protect them. I can defend myself easily."
"I'm sure that anyone here can protect themselves from what they could see. If anything, an ambush would kill us. Therefore, we have to stick together. You are what keeps us together. Thus, you should wear this."
Raverad hesitated at first. Sure he probably brought the group together, but actually keeping it together? Sean must have been seeing a different side in things, but there was no arguing with him. The Apostle quietly accepted the armour.
While he was trying to fit in on, Sean warned about a couple of zombies down the corridor. The two of them sneaked up and jabbed their swords into the undead. It took them a few seconds to retract their blades. They looked up and suddenly saw a horde of undead crowded at the turn of the hallway.
"Mercy of Agni, run!" Raverad yelled.
They ran through the corridors and out of the castle. Sean signaled the archers for fire support. Jenni, Joshua, and Pyros began firing their bows on the horde pouring out from below. Sean and the Apostle turned around, drew their swords, and charged.
With clever sidesteps and sword swings, the two of them were cleaving these zombies with ease. It was then that one got on Raverad's back and pulled him away from Sean. The horde had divided them. Zombies attracted from the outskirts of the castle began to sandwich the two swordsmen. The archers diverted their focused on the flanking zombies.
Raverad was knocked to the ground as a zombie loomed over him. His sword plunged into it face. The Apostle pushed the corpse off and picked himself up. He was surrounded by the foul-spawn. Raverad swung violently into the swarm. He tried to repel the closest zombie too him with each blow.
A zombie just grabbed his arm. It jaw yawned wide over his wrist. Suddenly, another blade punched straight through the creature's open mouth. He stumbled back and saw that his savior was not Sean like he first thought.
Two warriors in mail armour were chopping their way through the zombies like branches cleaved by machetes. One was dressed in some noble, neon-colored armour, stained by blood but must have once been pristine. The other wore more worn chain-metal, likely looted from a corpse. The former arrival looked as though he had combat experience long before the outbreak. As for the latter, not so much. Nonetheless, the duo were dancing across the herd of undead with deadly force. Both of them helped the group split the horde apart until there were no zombies left alive.
The archers met up with those on the ground. Raverad was the first to approach the two strangers.
The warrior in neon colors brushed his brown hair back from his forehead. "I am Earn, knight champion of Aspiremont," he greeted.
"Pleasure," the Apostle responded.
"And I am Dr. Delfias of Byesford," the other said.
"Thank you for your help," Sean said.
Everyone introduced ourselves.
"You worked at Byesford?!" Jenni asked. "You must know what happened over there!"
Sean and Joshua began questioning the doctor too. Pyros just stood in the background silently, as though he was watching theatrics he had already seen a dozen times. Raverad was also as curious as the other three, but he did not feel the need to ask anything. No one seemed to bring up Crimson. Perhaps the others were still skeptical on what Pyros brought up earlier.
"All in good time, friends,” Earn said with a hand raised. “Delfias is a bit tired right now. Lets wait till we meet the others."
"There are more?" Joshua asked.
"We have a group at Mclovinville," said Earn. "Two other men there with us. We could use more people on our way north."
"If you two are from northern places, why are you going back up there?" Pyros asked.
"We'll tell you when we get back," Delfias said.

The two groups merged at Mclovinville at night fall. It was a small fort just off to the side of the frozen river. Mclovinville was probably not its original name. As Raverad entered, he saw an old sign with ‘Mclovinville’ written over the long faded founding name. Obviously whoever was stationed here during the war was really bored without action.
There were two people here. They seemed laid back while they were waiting for the return of their comrades. One called himself Osiris. He was a big guy with worn leather armour. Osiris was a graduate from Consilo University and said he joined up with Earn and Delfias on his way to Byseford to find out what happened. Their group explained how the three of them were looking for others willing to help them at Byseford. Eventually, they came across the fourth member, Tubb. This skinny fellow carried a pack full of explosives, which rested on the far end of the fort (by order of Osiris apparently).
As the moon peaked over the trees, everyone was still awake with the exception of Sean. Jenni was teaching Joshua her skills as a combat medic. Raverad and Pyros were up in the tower with the four new additions to the group. They were discussing about the journey north. Pyros told them what he told Raverad and the others.
“It makes sense why we were never to make any breakthrough with the so-called virus,” Delfias said. “Still, sorry for my untrustworthiness, but I don’t suppose you have any proof, do you?”
“Where we plan to go in the north,” Pyros said, “who we plan to fight will be proof enough. We could use all the help we could get.”
“We would gladly help you, if you would help us with something in the north,” Earn replied.
Raverad and Pyros exchanged glances. “We’re listening,” the Apostle said.
“I want to retake Byseford from the undead,” Delfias said. “Everything that was left in there to research this phenomenon is still in there. I am interesting in finding its weaknesses. We were able to create a cure for the bite, but not for what reanimates the dead.”
“That place must be the most infested location in the region,” Raveard said. “Do you think we even have a chance.”
“With my bombs and Earn’s skill, I think we had a chance alone,” Tubb said. “You guys make great insurance.”
The cowl of Pyros turned to Osiris. “So what is your expertise then in this whole operation?” he asked.
“While Delfias is examining the virus and the necromancy, I will be searching for the source,” Osiris responded. “If the doctor’s methods fail, mine could succeed. Maybe finding where this necromancy came from may offer a solution… or at least a lead.”
“May I ask what you studied at Consilo?” Raverad asked.
“Archaeology,” he answered. “It was my knowledge of the ancient civilizations that led me to believe that the rise of undead has some root from said ancients. If what you say is true, Pyros, then that solves who the culprit is, and it narrows down where the crime scene could have been. And taking Byseford would be excellent for a base of operations. We all want to end this nightmare, right?”
“Most definitely,” Raverad said.
Pyros, again, seemed disinterested to respond.
“We should get some rest before heading out tomorrow morning,” Earn suggested.

They may have reached Crowmure if they did not suddenly find themselves seeing a mansion called Wayvernia. The place looked older than Aeternalis. All the overgrowth that developed really emphasized its age of abandonment. It must have been this way even before the outbreak The group itself stood on the edge of the small island that the estate was built on, just at the foot of the staircase to the entrance.
After traversing the forest for a while, the group had traveled to the northern river. Once stepping out of the canopy, they came across the volcanic mountain range in the horizon. Fresh lava came down in streams, slowly clawing towards the freshwater below. Raverad could tell that it had erupted no more than several days ago.
"This was where the ones we are seeking would make their last stop before reaching their destination," Pyros said. "We should search the place to find out exactly what they plan."
"You mean you don't know what they are doing?!" Delfias said.
"I know where they are going and what they intend," the ranger replied. "But I don't know their next specific action. Whatever it is, it involves this volcano."
"How can you be sure?" Earn asked.
"Like I said before, I have been tracking these people for weeks. For a while, they have been idle, as though waiting for something." Pyros turned to the lava running down the northern slopes. "Just five days ago, the main volcano made a small eruption. All of a sudden, the Crimson worshipers sprang into action, making haste to the mountains."
"They probably are heading to the sacrificial pit," Raverad suggested. "That is the closest structure to the opening, right on the rim."
"I assumed the same, but I don't want to make a mistake. They could be heading to Saward while the bandits residing there would have their hands full managing the lava flows, or perhaps the Mantle of Therum. We should investigate Wayvernia before moving forward."

Chapter 9 - The Tome of Hell
The group split to look for anything left behind by the Crimson cultists. Sean, Pyros, Jenni, Joshua, and Raverad looked around the bottom floor while Osiris, Earn, Tubb, and Delfias searched the higher levels.
The Apostle looked around the bookshelves while the others in the group checked the chests, tables and cabinets. After picking up a few books and skipping others, there was one that was quite peculiar. The spine read The Tome of Hell. Raverad opened it.
Terrible blasphemies about Agni were written all over the place. It related to different legends of ancient past. It was a like finding a history book and reading about a war you read about before but in the viewpoint of the other side.
There was a chapter called Agni Falters. Frowning at the sub-title, Raverad read. It looked similar to a story he knew called Hell Sprouts. It spoke of how a Crimson, still weak after his birth, angered Agni so much that it caused the volcano to erupt. But this eruption was so powerful that it allowed something to come out. What emerged was what looked like a massive tree. Agni, realizing his mistake, ordered his followers to build a sacrificial pit, which people made sacrifices to Agni in order to sink the tree back into the lava. It was too late though, for the Red Demon fed on the tree to fuel his strength. Suddenly, it became clear to Raverad.
He jumped, thinking a zombie just grabbed him. It was Pyros reading over his shoulder.
"What is this?" the ranger asked.
"I'm glad that you had us come here," the Apostle replied. "This book tells a story that I knew long ago that may give us a lead to where those Crimson followers are going. There was this tree that was birthed, or unearthed, from the volcano. It was a source of power for Crimson. The last time he used it was after his birth, when the volcano made its first and most devastating eruption. I think that eruption from five days ago must have triggered the tree to rise again."
"Then the Red Demon's followers are trying to restore their master's strength," Pyros concluded.
"Exactly. We should tell the others about this. Then, we go to the Hell Tree."
The Apostle and the ranger gathered those who were with them on the same floor. Their conversation was brief.
"The mountain has erupted a few times before and nothing happened," Joshua said.
"Every time that happened before, the followers of Agni would make two sacrifices to sink the tree again," Raverad responded. "Sounds barbaric, I know, but necessary. One of our closely guarded secrets."
"Let's go inform the other group upstairs," Sean said.
An explosion boomed from the entrance. The structure rocked slightly in response. Everyone in the room ducked for cover immediately. Immediately following was a massive bout of mocking laughter coming from outside. Then, came a voice as booming as the explosion.
"We know you're in there!" he called out. He was likely the leader of the group. "You can't escape! Just abandon hope and accept your demise!"
"Who are these guys?" Sean whispered to Pyros, but the ranger gave no answer.
Then, a loud crash. The ceiling above the middle of the room broke apart. Plummeting along with the wooden debris was a fat, bloated zombie. Much more cumbersome than the other undead, it slowly stood upright.
For a moment, Raverad held his breath, as did the others. He thought that monster would notice them. Instead, he let out a sigh of relief as the fiend walked out the door, disinterested in the others. Perhaps the explosion had attracted the creature?
His theory was confirmed when he heard a bandit outside shout, "get back!" Raverad leaned passed the doorframe to peak at the main hall. Several undead that had been lurking here, not having noticed the group's silent activity, were stirred into aggression. They were all running towards the outside.
“Now, while the bandits are occupied, let’s get out there!” Raverad called out.
The two groups on different floors joined up with each other and made their way towards the blasted entrance. Down along the staircase were seven bandits. Most of them wore chainmail, but a couple wore full sets of iron armour. Their blades and arrows were cutting through zombie flesh rather quickly.
Raverad was about to engage in the combat, but Earn stopped him. The Aspiremont knight turned to Tubb.
“Show them we mean business,” he said.
Tubb smirked as he grabbed a pouch from his belt. There was a fuse that wormed out of it. He lit a match and set alight one end of the fuse. Then, he tossed it right near the bandit’s feet.
One of the bandits noticed it tumble down the staircase. He cried out a warning to the other bandits. They all began to run, but the one who first noticed the explosive clumsily tripped over his panicked feet. The explosive finally triggered, blowing the bandit down the stairs. The other bandits were already retreating as quickly as they arrived.
Earn was the first to approach the fallen bandit, who was not dead, only wounded. The knight tugged on the bandit’s shoulders. Both of them were face to face.
The bandit’s face was broken and bloody. His jaw lazily hung low. The mail hood was no longer over his head.
“Who sent you?” Earn spat. There was no answer. “Who sent you?” he repeated. Still no answer. As though the silence vexed him, Earn slapped him across the face. “You don’t even have to tell me anything. I know you lot came from Saward. You bear the mark of the Balefire Clan.” He indicated the symbol of fire on the bandit’s armour. “But how did your lot know about us? Your leader, Hubert doesn’t even know we are here, unless he was told by someone else.” Earn turned to Pyros. “Are you sure those two Crimson worshippers did not notice you spying on them?”
The ranger turned his gaze towards the mountain. “I thought I was hidden, but they must have played along,” he said.
“Who could have noticed a stealthy ranger?” Sean said.
“One of them was once a ranger too,” Pyros replied. “Tosh Nighteye.”
“How could a ranger become a worshipper of Crimson?” Raverad said. “Let alone a bandit?”
“It doesn’t matter right now,” Earn said. He knocked the bandit unconscious by banging his head on the stone ground. “We need to get to the Hell Tree.”
“Aye, indeed,” the Apostle said. “But we should avoid Saward. Like you said, that’s where these bandits came from.”

The group decided to stop and take a break. After traversing the mountains to avoid Saward, everyone was tired and needed to rest before reaching the summit of the volcano. They settled on the northern wall surrounding the Mantle.
As the Apostle patrolled along the wall, he took glances at the others. Sean was eating some of his food. Joshua and Jenni were having a conversation. Same with Delfias and Osiris. Tubb was walking along the walls, gazing at the magnificent surrounding environment. Earn leaned against the battlement walls, staring at the great tower of the Mantle. Raverad joined Earn.
“Apostle, may I ask something as a matter of faith?” the knight asked.
“Go ahead,” Raverad said.
“Well, you’ve seen a lot of what’s going on in the world after the outbreak. All we know now is survival, killing zombies and bandits alike.”
“And protecting our friends and family.”
“Indeed. But every now and then, we pass by a church or some monument to the gods, like this tower here. My question is, where does your faith stand after experiencing all that has happened to you after the outbreak?”
Raverad had to think for a moment. Sure, he still had faith in Agni and the other gods, and in the face of this post-apocalyptic world, he did not think to question his faith. Now that it was brought up, he wondered how the gods would even let something like this happened.
“To be honest, I really don’t know what to think,” he answered. “A part of me feels that the gods still exist. They can’t be dead. Still, I cannot imagine why the rise of the undead would happen. Perhaps the gods were not able to do anything about it.”
“So, do you think something is holding them back?”
“I think that might be the case. Even before the outbreak, society prayed to the gods and some of these prayers were not answered. The need for water in the badlands for example. When the residents there prayed to Pulvia for rain, it never came.”
“Perhaps once we defeat Crimson, we may find an answer to that. Speaking of which, we should tell the others that we need to move on.”
The two of them gathered the others by the slopes of the volcano. They began to climb up. Pyros and Earn lead the way. Raverad and those of his original group followed behind. Osiris and Tubb were in the back.
The Apostle glanced behind him and noticed that Osiris was writing something in a small book. He slowed his pace to walk beside him.
“What do you have there?” Raverad asked.
“I’m writing about how tiring it feels to climb these mountains,” he replied. “The effort it takes to raise yourself with every step.”
“What for?”
“Fiction. Back in the university, I was a big enthusiast for writing fiction. But I never really had the time to take journeys like this, so writing about these sorts of things were difficult. Now, I can better describe them now that I am experiencing them. When we take Byesford, I will begin writing fiction again. I’ve had this idea for a while.”
“Interesting. I would like to read your works once we have the time.”
“I’ll make sure everyone does.”

Within a half an hour, the group had reached the summit. An intense wave of heat washed over everyone. The lava was a vast lake of empty land, with one exception. A single island surfaced a distance from the shoreline. A great, hellish tree sprouted from it. That was their destination.

Chapter 10 - Torment
Pyros pointed at a pressure plate near the boiling lake. Osiris stepped on is and a bridge slowly started to rise from the volcano. The ranger was the first to move across it. The others followed in an ordered fashion. Raverad found and stepped on a second pressure plate on the other end, which lifted another bridge for Osiris to cross. Once he was across, the Apostle got off the pressure plate and the bridges submerged again.
“To be honest, I was hoping that we wouldn’t find a way across,” Osiris admitted as he took his journal out again to write in. “Probably be best for me to take note of that kind of emotion if I decide to include that in a story.”
“You may not want to distract yourself with that,” Raverad said. “We don’t know what kind of trouble we could run into.”
“Your right,” Osiris replied as he put his book back in his pocket.
No undead yet, neither a sign of the Red Demon adherents. The group still moved close together just in case. There were some weapons and chain armour on some of the weapon racks. Raverad wondered how they got there. Nevertheless, those who needed the armour took what they needed.
Pyros found some twisted ladders on the side, which he climbed with ease. He helped the others climb up one by one. The first zombies began to crawl from the dark, as though out of nowhere.
Raverad was the last to climb the ladder. Before he proceeded, he noticed one of the zombies approaching him. It looked different, as though it were a fusion of human and pig. Whatever this demonic foulspawn was, Raverad quickly pulled himself up to avoid it. Once he escaped, he looked back down to see the undead trying to claw upwards. They did not seem to know how to climb ladders.
When he looked back at his group, he noticed that they were all staring at the tree. He turned to see what was over there. Perched on a high location, there was a figure in a ranger’s cloak. This must have been Tosh Nighteye, the one that Pyros mentioned. He held a bow in his hand with an arrow tugged slightly on the bowstring.
“Tosh,” Pyros called out. “You and Galvin are outnumbered. You have no chance. You must surrender.”
Tosh just stood still, not reacting at all. A good long minute of silence passed by with nothing happening. Something was not right. Pyros probably felt the same. He began to make his way towards the renegade ranger, who still was not doing anything.
When Pyros reached the other ranger, Tosh still did not move. He lowered the hood. It was not Tosh. It was simply a corpse, slain twice already, currently in rigor mortis, and set up like a scarecrow. In other words, the Crimson worshippers set up a decoy.
Suddenly, the corpse began to glow a deep red. Pyros was quick to react, but the trap struck faster. The body engulfed itself and the ranger in flames. He was knocked off of the perch and disappeared from that location. What was more, the fire kept expanding.
“Move!” was all Raverad could shout.
With that command, the rest of the group scrambled away, trying to reach the bridge. They lept off of the catwalks to the ground. The undead that tried to follow them earlier now began their pursuit again.
Sean was already on the pressure plate. He waved his arm in the direction away from the Hell Tree as the others crossed the bridge one by one. Raverad reached the bridge, but turned around to see the last one behind him, Osiris.
The man was just a few meters away when the flames caught up to him. Demonic pyres wrapped around his body. Osiris cried out in horrific agony, worse than that of the victim of any zombie bite. His body was scourged and destroyed in the fires. The last part of him to be consumed was his outstretched left hand.
Raverad had no time to mourn. He and Sean bolted across the bridge before the fire could reach them. Once they crossed the bridge, the Apostle turned around. The entirety of the tree was washed with demonic fire. It expanded no further than the island itself.
He was silent for a moment, not paying attention to the others. Rather, he thought about Pyros and Osiris. For the first time, they had losses. The former, a ranger who guided them there in the first place because he knew that Crimson had some malefic intent. The latter was once a Consilo student and a fiction writer. Raverad had seen people die, but never did he have to deal with the deaths of people he knew closely, even if it had been a short while since they just met.
And this sacrifice was for nothing. It was all he could think about as he followed the rest of the group down the mountain slope from behind. They came to try and stop two Crimson cultists from restoring their master’s power. Instead, the group lost two of their own, and the cultists supposedly succeeded.
At one point, they were crossing the bridge that they were one earlier. Raverad stopped to stare at the Mantle tower. Nothing changed. He half expected it for the gods to give a sign of sorrow. But the tower just stood there the same as it always did. It did not have a care in the world.
Angered, Raverad cried out to the tower. He began kicking the battlement walls in rage, repeatedly. When he was through, he tuned to see the group staring back at him. He had forgotten that they were there. It felt a little awkward, but the fury within him boiled his blood. He joined with the rest of the group (keeping a little distance behind) as they continued to traverse the mountains.

It was night now. The group had crossed the river and entered the forest. They decided to spend the night in the woods, considering that the closest towns were bandit territories.
A fire pit was set to keep the group warm. Suddenly, the group longed for the heat of the lava now that they were in the cold night. The fire crackled as it tried all it could to keep the others warm.
There was a lot less conversation, especially from Raverad. He kept himself away from the group, sitting by a tree trunk just out of reach of the fire’s light.
Crunchy footsteps came from behind him. The Apostle did not even bother to look at who it was.
“Are you alright?” Joshua’s voice came.
Raverad did not answer.
“Of course you’re not, that was a stupid question to ask,” he continued. Joshua carefully came to sit next to the Apostle, as though he were approaching a sleeping bear. “Listen, I’ve been talking to Jenni a lot recently. Both of us had experienced some tragic losses. For her, it was her comrades at Camp Bell. For me, it was my family. That was the reason why I became a bandit in the first place.”
The Apostle turned a cold gaze towards Joshua’s face with a “what’s your point?” look.
“But a...anyways, she told me that if it wasn’t for you, she probably would have given up, one way or another. That was how I felt, but you helped me too. You and Sean and Pyros. But now, you seem to feel the same as me and Jenni had. It’s important to look back and respect what we lost, but we should be focused on the future and not let our past tragedies eat us alive.”
Raverad turned his head away, staring at the distant fire pit and the other members of the group surrounding it.
“All I’m asking is that you don’t let this destroy you,” Joshua said. “Let’s move on from it. You can start by coming back with me to join the others.” He stood up and stretched an arm towards Raverad.
For a moment, the Apostle hesitated. Joshua’s words were hard for him to take in. Eventually, though, he accepted his friend’s wisdom. Raverad grabbed onto Joshua’s hand, who helped him stand up on his feet again. The both of them walked back to the fire pit.

Chapter 11 - Byesford
The group built rafts to traverse the waters in order to reach the island of Byesford. They had to first flank around Crowmure to avoid the bandits who hold it (as indicated by Earn). The seven of them used makeshift paddles and boats to get across the water.
Still, all was silent among the group. Without the usual conversations among them as they traveled, the smaller sounds crept into notice. Paddles swished the water, and the water swished the boats in return. It was like a passive battle between wood and water.
Raverad followed more closely with the group now, but his mind was still far from them. He gazed off in different directions, watching the sea expand further into the horizon. The land they had left seemed lonely as it was left behind. Normally, there would be seabirds, but they seemed to have disappeared from the world as much as many animals.
In the distance, there was another landmass coming up. It looked entirely walled off. The clumps of trees behind the walls stood like silent watchers observing our arrival. It was almost as if the inside of the island was safer than the rest of the world. Either that or it is a prison from which there was no escape, and that prison was death.
“This way to the entrance,” Delfias said as he paddled his way towards the eastern side.
The others followed him to a dock that extended out from an opening in the wall. Delfias was already on top of it with his raft floating just by the end of the dock. Everyone else got off of their own boats and joined Delfias. Then, they made their way into the dense forest.
Each tree was really close to the other. The gravel pathway was much skinnier than the roads on the mainland. Wind was beginning to pick up. It came through here as a howl. The more they proceed, the more the island seemed uninviting.
“Here’s the plan,” Earn said as they walked. “Tubb will set up an explosive trap to clear out most of the zombies. A few of us should try and lure the undead to the trap. Me and the others will escort Delfias into the laboratory. We will clear out the undead in there. If we are overrun, we run straight for this gate and fire at will. Any volunteers?”
“I could join you with Delfias,” Raverad said.
“Same here,” Sean joined.
“No, you should stick with the other three, Sean,” Earn said. “There will me more zombies out here than down there.”
“Alright then.”
“We should be almost there,” Delfias said.
The forest was so dark that the group could barely see each other. Eventually, they saw a light. A shiver ran down Raverad’s spine as they approached the massive gateway into Byesford Castle.
They walked into a massive mess hall. There was a pair of long tables. Across the great room was a throne for the Lord of Byesford, the one who funded for all the science that went on in here. Their footsteps echoed as they entered the cavernous environment. The very air tasted electric. Something did not feel right.
Some zombies were around, sitting still in chairs along the tables. The group drew swords and bows. Tubb was preparing the explosives at the entrance gates. Earn, Delfias, and Raverad were standing to the side, waiting for most of the undead to be cleared out. Joshua and Jenni stood at the opposite side of the gate, ready to hail arrows on any surviving zombies. Sean was preparing to lure the undead.
Sean began to clap his hands quite loudly. A booming echo followed each interval. Within a few seconds, the undead on the chairs began to hiss and growl. Their rotten faces turned towards the clapper.
“That’s right,” he said. “Come to papa.”
The zombies began to run once they got off of their seats. Sean sprinted towards the gates. Once he got passed it, Tubb set the fuse alight. He backed away too. The horde of over a dozen or so was suddenly engulfed in a fiery explosion. Their bodies landed on the ground with a splat. Sean and Tubb walked over to the mess of scorched corpses with blades in their hands. Every zombie that was left active would be stabbed.
Delfias led Earn and Ravearad towards a staircase to the right. They made their way down and eventually found the entrance into the laboratory. It was a chrome doorway, which was opened by one of Delfias’s activation runes.
They found themselves surrounded by iron vaults and rooms. Delfias went into one of them. There was blood smeared all over the windows. Raverad could not tell what went on inside. No longer did they hear Delfias’s footsteps.
"Earn," Delfias shouted from inside. "I need you!"
He did not sound like he was being attacked. It wasn’t, “could you help me with this,” even though that was sort of the tone of his voice. Why would he use such an urgent wording? Earn and Raverad followed inside with jaws dropping.
In the middle of the room, floating just slightly above ground was a spherical cage with a human inside. The man was stripped bare, but that was not the worst of it. Chains links were attached to his wrists, ankles, and through his eye sockets. He seemed tired as all he could do was pant. Never did he respond to the sound of their arrival. The object itself did not sit right with the room. The victim’s heavy breathing did worse than not help.
“That wasn’t there when I left,” Delfias said.
“Then where did it come from?” Earn asked. “And why is it here?”
“Hello?” Raverad called out. “Can you hear us.”
Delfias uttered a sudden distressful noise. The other two turned to see what he saw, through the doorway. There was nothing there, but Raverad could feel that something was there.
“I saw a shadow,” Delfias said with a shaking voice.
“Huuuugh….” came a disturbed voice from the caged man. “Huuraaaaagh!”
There was a sudden surge of electric intensity in the room, as though some great spell was being casted. At the same time, the man’s cries were worsening.
“We should free him,” Raverad said.
Then, he heard a struggle behind him. Earn was suddenly assailed by a zombie. Another one followed immediately. The Apostle charged at the second one, cutting his sword across its face. The Aspiremont knight also took care of the first one.
“We need to run, now!”
The three of them walked over the corpses as they left the room. They immediately encountered several more zombies coming from both ends of the hallway. Earn pressed his attack forwards, slashing the zombies between him and the exit. Ravearad and Delfias protected their rear flank, stabbing their swords at any zombie that drew too close. For a brief moment, Raverad glanced back into the room. The first two zombies that they killed were active once again. The marks of their deaths were gone.
They managed to reach the laboratory entrance. Delfias shut the doors on them. The zombies uselessly clawed and growled from behind that barricade. They were taking a breather when they heard cries for help above them.
Massive hordes were suddenly coming from not only within the castle but also from the entrance. The others were dancing across the tables, slashing and kicking any zombie that drew too close. They looked as though they were going to be overwhelmed very soon.
Raverad and his companions fought their way through massive hordes. Their swords maimed limbs and severed heads everywhere. They moved fast but slowed down as they were ensnared by fatigue. The entrance was so close but it looked hopeless.
An arrow went straight through the head of a zombie that was just about to bite Raverad’s neck. He looked at the gates and saw the cloaked figure of Pyros dancing through the horde and killing the foul-spawn one by one. The ranger moved so gracefully with a dagger in each hand. He knocked zombies back by kicking them in the ribs while jabbing other foul-spawn in the eyes. Almost every step of the way, he was leaping above their heads.
When the horde thinned, the others went to the gates. They tried not to run into trees or get lost but it was difficult to navigate through the dense forest. The group eventually reached the outer gates and the dock. Everyone grabbed their bows and aimed into the forest.
It was a bit suspenseful as they waited for the first zombie to appear. Dark eyes flickered within the forest and the archers pulled back their arrows. Then the hordes started pouring out like a tide of terror. A volley of arrows hailed back. The undead were being pelted with so many arrows that many were knocked back against the trees. Most dropped to the floor rapidly or were nailed to the trees. The stand against them piled the dead in haystacks. When it was over, the group lowered their bows. The dead looked like effigies of gods hanged on the tree bark by arrows.
Raverad looked at Pyros. "Thank Agni you survived"
"I snuck my way into the inside of the Hell Tree to evade the flames," he responded. “Galvin and Tosh had succeeded in returning Crimson’s strength. The only way we can defeat them now is to take the fight to Uprising.”
“The most powerful of all bandit clans?” Joshua said. “Are you mad?!”
“Look, I’ve lost their trail. The only sure way of intercepting them now is to combat the clan they are a part of.”
“But how are we going to fight a major clan with only eight of us?” Sean said. “They must have a score of bandits or two.”
“We can find allies,” Raverad said. “We can build up an army of our own.”
“Well, without many people in the world, with most of those remaining untrustworthy, how are we going to get an army?” Jenni asked.
“When I first washed up on the beach, I met a few good people in Grimdale. There are others in the city too, but too scared to leave their houses. However, if we could convince them to combat Uprising with us, we could have a sizable force to stand a chance.”
“How would you convince them?” Earn asked.
Raverad was irritated by all the questions and doubts. “Simple, we liberate their city. They no longer need to live in fear. Then, we train them to fight. Finally, we are given a cause.”
“Even if we do get them on our side, there won’t be enough of us to have good odds against Uprising.” Joshua said.
“We would at least have better odds,” Pyros said. “Besides, what’s the alternative? Wait until Crimson does whatever malefic intent he has for us all?”
Silence was the only response to the ranger’s words.
“We should head back south immediately,” Raverad suggested.
Without any more arguments, the group boarded their rafts and began paddling back to the mainland as the sun set in the horizon. Once they reached the mainland, they traveled a bit further until they felt weary. Once again, the group set up camp in the middle of the woods.

Chapter 12 - Capture
The night before, all Raverad could remember was a sharp blow to the back of his head. He remembered being bound, gagged, and dragged. Now, his eyes were opening. His vision cleared. Faint faces became more definite.
There were two. One of the faces was a man with a pointed chin, skinny nose, and brown hair. His sharp eyebrows that made him look really cross. The other was a woman with a much wider nose, circular face, and short blonde hair. Both of these figures wore iron armour.
A third person entered the scene. This man was shorter than the other two. He wore iron armour that barely fit him. His eyes were half covered by the rim of the helmet. He looked much younger than the first man.
“Our soldiers are on lookout,” he told the first man, who was probably the leader. “I will join up with them. You three have everything under control, right?”
“Yes, thank you,” replied the leader.
With that, the third one left. The leader helped the Apostle sit upright on one of the chairs.
Raverad could not see the rest of the room. It was fairly large. The entrance must have been behind him, for he felt a breeze tickle the back of his neck. Rows of seats stretched from that entrance to the throne that the Apostle was facing. The leader of their kidnappers was sitting on that very throne.
He turned his head side to side, seeing his companions in the same situation he was in. To his right, he saw Joshua and Earn. The latter was the only one trying to struggle and speak through his gagged mouth. Raverad looked to his left. Sitting next to him was Delfias. Across the aisle was Sean, Tubb and Jenni.
A fourth bandit in iron armour, whom the Apostle did not see before, approached Jenni. He lifted her chin so he could get a good look at her face.
“Find your match, Peter?” the female bandit asked the fourth bandit.
“No, I’m better than that,” he replied. “But she looks too pretty to keep around. The others might… you know… want her.”
“You don’t see the others trying to hook up with me or Rhonda,” the female argued.
“Rhonda is ugly though,” said Peter. “And everyone knows not to mess with you.”
“Except George,” the woman added. “Only he is thick headed enough to even try. And Jenna of course is kept away from the others by Cory.”
“Are we done socializing?” shouted the leader. “We have bigger threats at stake. Uprising could arrive any minute. Begin interrogation!”
“Let’s start with you,” the woman grabbed Earn’s wrist and escorted him towards a different room to the right.
“Lady’s first,” Peter said as he took Jenni to the opposite room.
Once the four of them, all was silent. The leader was just sitting with his legs crossed. He drew his diamond sword. That brought chills down Raverad’s spine. The other looked shaky. The leader just sat there admiring his blade.
The Apostle then realized something. Pyros was not here. The ranger had not been captured. He let out a smirk, which the leader probably noticed despite the gag.
The leader approached Raverad after returning his sword to his sheath. He yanked the gag out of the Apostle’s mouth, who enjoyed the freedom of his jaw.
“Is something funny?” the leader asked.
Raverad smiled even more. This situation was too perfect. These bandits had no idea what was going to happen.
“Listen here, buddy,” the leader continued. “You lot were sent here by Uprising. Your smiling means that the situation is in your favor. Am I right?”
The Apostle looked up as he saw a shadow dance across the upper floors. Pyros stealthily jumped from one of the balconies and onto the top of the throne. The leader did not notice the ranger at all.
“You’re half right,” Raverad playfully said.
The leader managed to follow the Apostle’s line of sight. Right when he faced the ranger, the leader was struck in the right elbow by an arrow. He would have screamed if it had not been for Raverad’s following reaction.
The Apostle swiftly wrapped his bound wrists around the leader’s exposed neck. He choked the leader until that bandit passed out. No murder was necessary. He did not want to deal with an iron armour wearing zombie while he was bound.
Pyros had freed most of the others already. By the time Raverad was finished knocking the leader out, the ranger came to cut his binds off.
“Thank you,” he told the ranger.
While Pyros was in the interrogation rooms, Raverad took the diamond sword from the bandit leader’s sheath. The weapon was much more peculiar to hold than it was to see. It felt abnormally light weight. Its edge was impossibly finely crafter. Certainly, no ordinary blacksmith could have forged this weapon. Heck, not any human at all. It was most likely crafted by the magic of the gods themselves.
It was fortunate that everyone still had their armour on. Alas, the only weapons available are those they can take from the bandits. Jenni, Joshua, and Delfias took bows from the bandits. These ones had increased power due to their enchantments, blessings from a magical fusion discipline from Agni and Simoon. Earn and Sean took the diamond swords of the other two bandits in the interrogation rooms. They too were impressed by the incredible awe of these blades. Tubb found his pack of explosives behind the throne.
“Alright, here’s the plan,” Raverad announced. “Pyros will take the lead to find us an escape route. As for the rest of us, we split into groups of two: one archer and one swordsman. The archer will shoot the bandits at long range while the swordsmen will keep the bandits from getting too close to our archers.”
“Aye!” the group replied at once.
Pyros was already the first on the move. He climbed up the guard towers to ambush any bandits in those. The rest of the group made their way to the large entrance. There was no garish light of daytime to greet them. It was still the same night they were captured.
“Welcome to Aspiremont,” Earn said. “The tour guide service got a lot worse since I was last here.”
Ammist the cluster of buildings, there were several chainmail bandits in counting. Fortunately, not many of them had noticed what was going on yet. They seemed more occupied on any outside force coming their way. The leader said something about Uprising coming. Were they allies? Enemies? Raverad could not know for sure.
“Hey!” shouted a mail-clad female bandit from one of the rooftops. She raised her bow and began to fire.
The others evaded to the side. Raverad felt the arrow ping off of his armour. He looked back and saw Delfias fire back at the bandit. His arrow seemed to make a painful blow into the bandit’s gut. The Apostle watched her nearly collapse from the rooftop, but she managed to save herself.
“Nice shot!” Sean told Delfias.
Another bandit reared around the corner of the castle. He too was in mail armour, but his gloves were customized with spikes. The grin on his face showed more enjoyment in the fight than hatred of his foes.
“Let’s dance!” he shouted. He charged forwards with full speed.
Jenni and Joshua both fired their arrows at the assailant. Both arrows stuck critical blows; one in the chest, the other in his arm. It was not enough to be fatal, but enough for him to retreat as suddenly as he arrived, with a swear word trailing off in the air.
Pyros came out the front gates of the castle. He was about to speak when a pair of hands reached out from behind him. His reaction was swift as he turned around and drove both daggers into the bandit’s neck. It was Peter. When the bandit turned into a zombie, Pyros retracted one blade at a time before stabbing its eyes. Once the monster went inactive, the ranger kicked him away while removing his blades again.
“I found an exit,” he said. “Follow me.”
An arrow suddenly smashed into Pyros' arm. Even the enemy was shocked about the attack. Raverad could not trace where the arrow came from; it was too dark out.
Heavy and rapid footsteps sounded as though people were closing in. The group all turned towards the noise to see the chain bandits being shot at, dropping on by one. Coming from over the walls were about a dozen iron bandits. They bore the blooded omega.
Pyros immediately stood back up and threw a knife at on iron bandit. It struck him in the forehead and he fell to the ground like a rag doll. His zombie form picked himself back up and charged at the Aspriemont bandits.
One of the four iron bandits charged at Raverad. With sword raised defensively, the Apostle waited. His diamond sword swept but Raverad successfully ducked. He staggered while the Apostle came up from behind.
Raverad stabbed with his own diamond sword through his combatant’s back. When he retracted it, the bandit turned around. Too late; Raverad swung his sword from under his face and his lower jaw was crushed. Disoriented and in agony, he could not fight back when the Apostle swept his sword back down. On impact, the helmet between the head and blade knocked the bandit out.
He noticed that Pyros was chasing a shadow. A dusky figure pounced on the ranger and the two tumbled. Pyros looked into his adversary's face.
"Tosh Nighteye." Pyros said recognizing him. "You’re here."
"I thought me and Galvin had killed you with our trap at the Hell Tree," Tosh spat.
“But I live still, here to deliver the death you deserve for following such a dark path!"
The two were about to clash when an iron sword slashed him in the arm. He looked at the red-robed bandit who hit him. He had an injury on his arm similar to that of Pyros. Suddenly, he saw the wound begin to heal on the arm of the new threat. That sword was empowered by terrible witchcraft. His smile made the features of his round face retreat to the sides. The ranger recognized him as Galvin.
"Hail the Red Demon!" he yelled before knocking Pyros aside. The wizard helped Tosh stand.
"My thanks, Starseer," Tosh replied the wizard. He looked at wounded Pyros. "Now lets take care of him."
An arrow ripped through Glavin’s arm. He was knocked to the side. Tosh quickly snuck back into the shade. There was a shadow dancing among the buildings. It was a cloaked being, but not trained like a ranger. Then, she emerged. Raverad recognized her as the woman he met from Grimdale.
The girl in dark clothing twisted her head around as though searching for Tosh and Galvin. Pyros accidentally made a noise when the pain rebuilt in his arm. In reaction, the girl aimed her bow at Pyros but did not fire. She looked up at the Apostle, recognizing his face. Then, she turned her head to the rest of the group. Without a word, the girl withdrew her bow.
“Let’s get you all out of here,” she said. The young woman indicated the Southeastern corner of the city. “There is a breach in the wall that way.”
With the bandits of Aspiremont distracted by the invading Uprising, the group managed to stealthily retreat from the battleground. A small, narrow opening in the wall was just beyond the graveyard, crowded by other buildings. The surrounding structures provided much cover from any line of sight from the bandits.
The voices of frustrated bandits, growls of zombies, and clatter of clashing blades soon faded into nothing as the group made their way into the woods. It was now replaced by the more peaceful sounds of nature, which had been more empty since the outbreak but it was serine just the same. Their pace had slowed to a quick walk. After several minutes, they stopped to rest.
“Are we all alright?” Raverad asked everyone in the group.
He did a headcount. Pyros was definitely here. The ranger was scanning the area from where they came from, watching for any pursuers. Jenni and Joshua were here. It was unfortunate that Jenni was unable to retrieve her medical kit. Sean was leaning against one of the trees, catching his breath. Tubb was here, and so were Earn and Delfias. As for the young woman who saved them….
“She’s gone,” Earn said. “Disappeared while we were getting away.”“Do you think she was captured by the bandits?” Sean asked.
“We should go back,” Raverad suggested.
“What if she’s not there?” Delfias argued. “We could get captured again. Do you want to risk that?”
“What if she needs our help?” Sean said.
“She slipped in the middle of a fight between two groups,” Earn said. “I’m pretty sure she managed to slip out.”
Raverad was about to argue again when they heard some voices from the distance. He heard phrases like “I think they went this way” and “they can’t have gone far.”
“There’s a place we could hide somewhere around here,” Earn said. “An ancient ruin. I think I know where to go from here.”
Earn led the group to the ruins. It seemed like an ancient crypt that led underground. Climbing down a staircase, Raverad did not hear anyone, or anything, behind them. At the bottom, there were a pair of pressure plates. The Apostle assumed it opened a pathway. He stood on one of them and figured he was right. The wall opened up and the group entered the next room. The next thing Raverad saw was all too insane.

Chapter 13 - Being Hunted
"The walls," Jenni said, "they're changing!"
Some walls disappeared, some changed positions, and some were entirely new.
“What is this place?” Raverad asked, but no one answered. Even Pyros looked shocked by all this.
The madness soon ended. The architecture was still again. There was relative silence, other than the settling body of the ruins.
Suddenly, the undead appeared out of nowhere. They were running around the corner of a newly formed hallway. More moans were coming from down the dark corridors. The closest zombie to us was jabbed in the eye by Pyros. Another two were slain by the blades of Sean and Earn.
“Get back,” Jenni told the swordsmen.
Earn and Sean quickly withdrew from the corridor as Jenni, Delfias, and Joshua raised their bow. There was a moment of suspense as the euphony of hideous growls came from down the halls. Out of the darkness, the horde arrived. Three arrows went flying. The frontmost zombie fell when one arrow struck its upper leg, causing it to collapse, which then had the other arrow make the killing blow in the forehead. The third arrow hit one of the other zombies in the foot, which forced it to trip. Its body became a roadblock for the others. Tubb threw an explosive into the slowed crowd. Everyone covered their ears as the blast created a red explosion. Once the smoke cleared slightly, Raverad could see several shapes still coming. Pyros threw two daggers and slain two zombies with a hit in their foreheads. Earn, Sean, and Raverad drew their swords and cut down the last three zombies.
For the next few moments, the air filled with the sounds of panting. Raverad had hardly done anything today but fight and run. His muscles ached as well as his chest. He had to use his sword to keep himself from collapsing. Growls in his belly continued to demand food. Unfortunately, they had none. The bandits of Aspiremont took it all from them when they were captured. When they would leave the ruins, they would have to find some more. His heart rate was finally slowing down before it suddenly picked up again. Jenni screamed.
Raverad turned to see the woman collapsed to the ground. There was a zombie attacking her, but not the usual one they encountered. It was about the size of an infant, but it managed to move around with its frail body. Its teeth sunk deep into Jenni’s fingers.
Joshua, with an arrow in his hand, speared it through the tiny zombie’s weak face. Its body seemed well developed for such a small thing. He had to repeatedly retract and stab the fiend in the head. Finally, it was head, but its teeth were still stuck in Jenni’s fingers. Joshua manually opened the little zombie’s jaws to free her hand. Her agonizing screams intensified.
Her fingers were a bloodied ruin. The three middle fingers of her right hand had their skin torn. They were not just bite marks, but the teeth had nearly shaved off her finger nails. The blood that spilled oozed a deep purple-crimson. It even bubbled, as though it tried to reject the bite-born disease that the zombie gave her.
“We have nothing on us to help her,” Delfias said. “We need to amputate her hand.”
“NO!” Joshua cried. He used himself as a barrier between Jenni and the others.
“Delfias is right,” Earn said. “I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.”
“It’s her choice,” he argued. “Let her choose.”
All eyes were on Jenni now. She held her ruined hand up. Tears rolled down her face as she stared at it. Her breathing was shaky. She turned her head towards the others. Jenni shook her head.
“Jenni, we have to…” Delfias began.
“There’s… still… time,” Jenni said with a sudden breath between frequently. “We could… find… anti-... antidote… in a town.”
“There’s a chance we won’t,” Delfias argued. “It may be too late for you by then.”
“My… choice. I… at least… want… to keep… my… fingers.”
There was another silent moment. Joshua removed the bandage he received that covered the already healed wound he suffered at Camp Bell. He used it to cover Jenni’s fingers.
“Pyros, search for a way out,” Raverad said.
The ranger nodded before jogging down the corridors. Earn, Delfias, and Tubb walked off. Raverad and Sean stayed by Jenni. Joshua was trying to calm her nerves by whispering things to her. The Apostle did not want to listen.
“What was this place?” Sean asked, partially to himself.
“I have no idea,” Raverad answered sadly. “I would imagine it was a prison.”
Sean turned his head towards the Apostle. “What makes you say that.”
Raverad looked down at Sean now. “Why else would the walls have the ability to shift? That kind of defense system is better than any bars or guards.”
“It could be to confuse grave robbers.”
“Well, I guess we’ll never know for sure.”
“Apostle!” Tubb called from the end of the corridor. “Pyros found an exit.”
Raverad, Sean, and Joshua helped Jenni stand up on her feet slowly. Joshua kept her arm raised so the wound does not bleed as much. The four of them followed Tubb down the corridors.
When they joined up with the others, they found some pressure plates in a small, seemingly unfinished corridor. Pyros and Earn stepped on the pads and, just like the entrance to the place, the walls opened up an exit. Raverad heard the walls changing behind them. The group hurriedly scrambled inside. A zombie was waiting just beyond them, but Earn was already ready to kill it. He pinned it on the wall and stabbed in in the head. Once they were all through, Raverad found a button and pressed it. A way to stairs opened up and the group found themselves outside in moments. The exit was a large fountain tower. Nobody had any bottles to fill, so they tried to sustain themselves the best they could with cupped hands. They decided to rest for a moment. Raverad felt like he was getting too old for this kind of life.
Their reprieve was short lived. An arrow nearly hit Raverad. It just barely missed as it tore right through the waterfall..
"Move out," he quickly said. "To the south."
More arrows came, but nobody could see where they were coming from. It was night out now. The whole group was tired. Jenni was wounded. They had no food, water bottles, or medical supplies. Uprising or the Aspiremont bandits, either way, they really knew how to pursue.

They tried to rest at Arbreton but only got a half an hours worth of sleep before the arrows came flying in again. Same story at the Yongton Abbey. They tried to trick them by going to the Stillwater Motte. No use, bandits just kept coming. Pyros could not even track them.
Now, they were headed for higher ground. While they were at the Yongton Abbey, Pyros spotted a hilltop castle a distance to the south. That was the direction they were now going. It may give them a defensible advantage. Raverad also prayed for it to be morning by then or sooner.
The Apostle was absolutely worn out. His body tried to tell him constantly to lie down and sleep. Others in the group seemed to feel the same way. There was frequent yawning. They tried not to run, for it would only force them to stop and rest, during which more arrows would force them to continue. It was a death march in the night.
They managed to collect some food and water during their short stay at the towns. Unfortunately, there was no antidote or medical supplies for Jenni. The lack of sleep seemed to affect her the most. Her sickness was worsening by the hour. Delfias had predicted that she would die by tomorrow evening at the latest. Joshua was determined to save her.
Raverad walked up to Earn to speak with him. He only now just something.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” the Apostle spoke to him.
Earn gave him an “I’m listening” look.
“Back at Wayvernia, you mentioned the Hell Tree after we defeated those bandits. Well, I remember how those of us downstairs found a book telling us of that tree. Before, none of us knew where we were going. We didn’t tell you about the Hell Tree yet. And yet, you knew about it. Forgive me if I sound like an inquisitor, but may I ask how you knew about it?”
Earn gave somewhat of a sigh. Raverad could not tell if it was of defeat or relief.
“I’m not a spy for Uprising’s Crimson cultists, if that is what you were asking.”
“I never accused you! I just wanted to know how you knew that.”
“I had my suspicions. Osiris told me about it when we first met, along with his other findings. Remember, he studied archaeology, so he knew full well of the Sacrificial Pit’s history.”
“True, but he must have done deep studying to know that it was specifically some hellish tree. Even I was surprised to learn of such a thing. I knew something was in the volcano, but I didn’t know what.”
At the end of the conversation, the ground reached a steep incline. They all looked upwards. Brighter shades of blue were beginning to appear in the sky. A faint streak of orange wrapped the eastern horizon. Up the hill, there were dense trees hiding the castle from view. The group began its ascent. No volleys of arrows came yet. Raverad’s heart rate increased at the thought of a possible trap.

After a tough climb up the massive hill, they eventually had the castle in their sights. The group was starving and tired. Delfias collapsed onto his knees. Tubb and Earn immediately helped pick him to continue climbing the hill. Raverad was getting slower, but Sean helped him. Jenni was helped by Joshua. Pyros was already up surveying the castle grounds and clearing out the undead.
Raverad scanned the main courtyard. Bodies of fallen zombies were being dragged out. He helped Earn and Sean to create a perimeter with the bodies. They would burn them so the bandits will not attack from those specific directions. Joshua and Delfias were on the battlements, ready to repel invaders with their bows. Jenni, unfortunately, could not use her bow due to her ruined hand. She was given a knife by Pyros to defend herself, but she was to stay out of trouble. Once the outside workers were finished, they went into the castle. Tubb had set up explosive traps at the entrances. When they would go off, Earn, Raverad, and Sean would attack. The ranger was hidden in the trees outside, waiting for sort of a counter-ambush.
All was quiet. The wind howled through the openings of the castle. Raverad’s blade was vertically aligned with his body, really close to his chest. Earn, Tubb, Jenni, and Sean were all crouched in the shadows, keeping their weapons close. It was all too suspenseful. Raverad could tell that he and the others were about to collapse in need of sleep.
“Apostle,” Jenni said, her voice shaking with more fear than pain.
Raverad turned his head towards her. “What is it?”
A tear rolled down her face. “I’m probably not going to make it, so I have a request.” Raverad was about to try and reassure her but she was already talking. “When… if I die, take care of Joshua. I think my death will affect him more than anyone else here. He’s lost so much already. Don’t let another destroy him.”
The Apostle tugged at his own cheeks with his right hand. He thought about Osiris and what Joshua said when he was hurt by their first loss. Raverad pictured the devastating flames that consumed Osiris, only it devoured Jenni instead. He imagined Joshua on his knees with a knife in his hands. His fingers left his chin as he dismissed the thought from his head.
“I promise, you will be fine,” he said. “If anything does happen though, I will make sure Joshua does not fall.”
“It’s not just death. I can’t stand imagining him committing suicide in front of my corpse. I would rather him get torn by the undead fighting for you guys rather than uselessly dying with the dreadful memory of me.”
The conversation ended abruptly. A loud boom came from the castle entryway. The blare of the explosion faded within a second. Raverad did not hear the screams begin, but he heard them end. The castle itself shook briefly, shivering as it could do nothing but withstand the wound to its infrastructure. Dust rose from where Tubb’s traps were set.
“Let’s move!” the Apostle told his swordsmen.

Chapter 14 - Stand
As the dust dissipated, Raverad could see more definite shapes appearing. The first thing he saw were a few bodies lying on the floor. Dust still made it difficult to see the more detailed features. He then could see the outlines of the trees in the horizon. The brown of the dust was illuminated by the rising sun.
Once it cleared even more, sunlight was able to reflect on the mail armour that the dead bandits wore as well as their iron blades. The blooded omega of Uprising was painted on leather capes over their backs. There were two of them. One had his head crushed by a fallen stone brick from the castle. The other had turned into a zombie, but its severely wounded legs kept it from standing back up. It used its arms to drag itself uselessly towards the swordsmen. The mail armour it wore ground the soil beneath it. Its head was penetrated by Earn’s blade.
The first arrow launched and nearly hit Earn. He stumbled into the grass as he backed away behind the protection of castle walls. More alert, the other swordsmen stayed close to the walls. The arrow came from the northeast.
Joshua and Delfias noticed this from towers. They turned their bows towards that direction. They crouched low, keeping their heads down as low as possible while still being able to see what was coming.
There was a rustling coming from outside. Raverad peered around the corner. He noticed the leaves of one of the trees waving in the air.
The archers saw this two. They fired a volley at that tree. Blood splattered. There was an agonized grunt. They managed to hit. No moans though. The bandit in the tree was not yet dead.
Suddenly, a large volley of arrow came showering at the castle. They whistled collectively, howling like an advancing army. Raverad only heard them as they pattered the castle walls. He also heard Delfias and Joshua drop with a thump on the battlements. One of them made a counter-attack soon after. Whoever it was, he shot in the direction of the volley. It seemed to miss.
Raverad saw something roll into the castle. It stopped in between his and Sean’s feet. It looked like some green orb.
"What in Agni's name?" Raverad muttered.
“Get out of there!” Tubb shouted.
If the warning was from Tubb, then it must have been an explosive, Raverad thought. It was too late. The bomb went off. Some fluid stung and seeped into his eyes. He wasn’t wounded in the flesh though. However, he was blinded. Sean and Earn must have been the same. The Apostle could only lift his arms outwards to try and feel solid objects. He heard a rapid clinging of metallic footsteps coming closer. Raverad turned in the direction away from them and bolted.
Once his vision began to clear, he turned around. At the entrance where he was close by, he could see two blurred figures. One of them, who was probably blind, was helping guide the other. Then, there were more silhouettes coming from behind them. At first, they were a blare of blinding light. Then, their bodies were more visible when they were through the entrance, blocking the sun’s light from their armour. One of them had a sword raised in the air. The guide of the first two figures shoved the blinded one out of the way. Raverad did not know who the guide was and he wished he had when he saw the blade strike the distorted form. A brief shower of red followed the blade that cut the guide. The guide fell flat on his (or her) back. The bandit who attacked the guide had his sword ready to impale the victim.
Raverad’s attention diverted when a flash of a fast, thin object whizzed towards him from the other bandit. He felt the arrow scrape his right ear. Raverad tried to stay mobile so arrows could miss.
The arrow fire ceased. Raverad turned towards the other bandits now. His vision was still blurry, but he could see more clearly what had happened. A figure dropped from the above floor and landed right behind the two bandits. The attacker drove a dagger into the swordsmen who killed the guide. This repeated a second time to kill the zombie form of the bandit. The archer bandit turned to face this attacker, but did not react in time. The figure grabbed the back of the archer’s head with one hand, turned the bandit towards the castle wall, and smashed the face into it. The bandit only fell onto the ground, not dead but knocked out. Raverad’s vision managed to clear to see who his savior was. It was Jenni.
She dropped to the ground to pick up her knife that was stuck in the first bandit’s neck. The woman was coughing quite hard. Her eyes squinted as her body attempted to exorcise the sickness.
Raverad ran up to her. On the way, he noticed that the body of the guide was Tubb. His face was disfigured by the sword swing he suffered. Blood smeared everywhere and his mouth and nose were barely recognizable. He expected Jenni to mourn, but she did not. He watched medic simply take her weapon and approach the entrance. The Apostle grabbed her by the shoulder.
“You need to rest,” he told her. “You can’t fight like this.”
“Hey, I just saved your life!” she spat. “I can still fight!”
“But you're sickness will weaken you. You might get killed before we have a chance to save you.”
“I don’t think there will be a chance.”
Jenni ran outside and he followed. The sun flared in their eyes. Raverad lifted his arm to block the light. It especially stung his eyes. Probably a side effect of the blinding explosive he suffered. He noticed the gleaming lights of metal armour worn by the bandits. They were in the trees. Joshua and Delfias must have noticed this too as they were firing their arrows at the correct targets. Raverad watched as one bandit was hit in the leg by one of the arrows before falling out of a tree, his scream following him on the way down.
He noticed shadows dancing at the corner of his eye. Raverad looked towards the southern side of the castle. It was Pyros, withdrawing himself from the thicket.
The ranger kept his bow aimed when he saw something else moving among the trees from whence he came. An arrow came flying from that direction. He immediately fired his own bow. Pyros's arrow split through the enemy arrow. The two halves of the incoming arrow missed Pyros while his own arrow was lost in the forest. He heard a painful grunt from the trees. Leaping from the shadows was not the one he hit. It was Galvin, the wizard he encountered at Aspiremont. He charged Pyros with his vampiric iron sword. The ranger evaded the swing before kneeing him in the stomach. The sorcerer stumbled back as the ranger flipped a dagger from his sleeve. He smashed the butt of his knife into Galvin’s face. Before the ranger could make the killing blow, the wizard muttered a phrase. A wall of flame parted him from the ranger. They stood face to face (although Pyros’s face was covered by his hood).
Galvin looked over his opponent’s shoulder to stare at Raverad and Jenni. "How do you know you can trust him,” he snickered.
“Stop it!” Raverad spat. He knew what the wizard was trying to do. Glancing at Jenni’s fierce eyes, he could tell that she knew it too.
“Let me tell you something,” he said. “This guy destroyed our tower." Galvin pointed at Pyros. "I was there. The undead were being studied. Then your ranger friend blew a hole open, letting the undead out. Don’t you see what he is trying to do?”
“STOP IT!” the Apostle repeated. His fists clenched tightly, his right hand gripping his sword tight. He could tell that Pyros and Jenni were as tense as he was.
“He caused this so he could find a way to control it! He wants to control the undead towards his whim!”
“LIES!” Jenni cried out as she bolted towards Galvin.
Raverad and Pyros tried to stop her, but it was too late. Her knife rose high in the air as the rest of her body was engulfed in flames. She charged through the fire wall. Even Galvin was surprised and unprepared. The wizard tried to back away, but Jenni’s knife cut through his blocking arm. The sleeve tore with a loud rip. Blood gushed out as Galvin recoiled in agony.
Immediately after the assault, Jenni wailed as she dropped to the ground on fire. She rolled all over the ground, trying to get the flames off of her.
“Jenni!” Joshua cried out from above.
Pyros and Raverad flanked the fire wall to get to her and Galvin. The ranger dropped to help Jenni while the Apostle followed Galvin towards the edge of the thicket. He threw his fist into the back of the wizard’s neck.
“Don’t even try and turn us against each other!” Raverad roared. He grabbed hold of Galing and gave another heavy punch, letting him fall again. “Pyros has led us all to try and stop you and your master from ascending himself! By Agni, I swear that Crimson will pay for bringing this plague upon us all!”
Galvin was suddenly wide eyed. Then, his eyebrows lowered as his smile crested. He let out a light chuckle. This confused the Apostle. His foe just laughed as though all that he said was some joke.
“I get it,” Galvin let out.
He then stopped laughing. The wizard brought his boot hard into Raverad’s groin. Galvin quickly picked himself up as Raverad fell to the floor in pain.
“I get it,” he repeated before casually walking away.
Raverad slowly picked himself back up. The din of arrow fire seemed to stop. All that was left was the crackle of fire left behind by Galvin, which was slowly dying out. The Apostle turned to face his friends.
Sean and Pyros were trying to put out the fire. Delfias and Earn were keeping watch to make sure the bandits did not return. Jenni sat against the castle wall. Much of her flesh was scorched black and red. Raverad could smell the singed skin from a distance. Joshua was right next to her, weeping while holding her undamaged hand.
“I killed you,” Joshua said to her. “I killed you. I’m so sorry. I wanted to protect you, but I killed you.”
“You didn’t kill me,” she said. “I was going to die anyways.”
“I was… their scout.” Joshua’s frequent bursts into tears made it difficult for him to speak. “I led them... to Camp Bell. It’s... my fault your friends are dead. It’s my fault that you are too.” He tried to breath through his crying.
“Don’t worry about it. I forgive you. You changed. That’s all that matters.”
“If I didn’t join Uprising, your friends would still be alive, and you wouldn't have to be like this….” He sniffled rapidly.
“You can’t change that. You can only change yourself. And you did. Even if with my death, you still changed enough to be forgiven.”
“But I still won’t let it happen!” Joshua looked up at the Apostle. “There is a town just down the hill to the west. We can get Jenni there if we move now.” He took Jenni in his arms and looked at her face. “I promised I would save you….”
Suddenly, an arrow whizzed from the woods. Raverad took a glance at the direction from where it came from. A shadow danced within the trees in a retreat.
“NO!” he heard Joshua cry out.
Wished he never knew what that meant. The Apostle turned to see. Joshua dropped Jenni to the ground. His eyes were wide and his jaw dropped. Inhaling ceased. The arrow gone straight through Jenni’s head.
Joshua let out a roar of pure, explosive rage. His legs kicked the ground as he lept over Jenni’s fallen form and towards the wood. He had taken Jenni’s knife into his own hand.
Raverad immediately boosted to try and follow him. He heard the growls of Jenni’s zombie form behind him followed by the grotesque sound of a knife piercing flesh. As he felt gravity’s pull getting stronger down the hill, his feet felt great impact on the steep slopes. His arms kicked back and forth and his panting kept him from calling out to Joshua.
The tormented man stopped to draw his bow. He drew one arrow, hastily pulled it on the bowstring, and blindly fired. Then, he took out another arrow, which he clumsily dropped. He fell onto his knees along with it. Raverad reached him and wrapped his arms around the saddened victim. Joshua’s eyes dug into the Apostle’s arms and resumed weeping after his rage was spent.
“We’ll get them,” Raverad whispered to him. “She was our best healer, great archer, and valuable friend. Jenni died by the hands of Uprising, not by you. You wanted to save her. That’s what separates you from them.
“The deaths caused by zombies are one thing but when one of our own is murdered, that is when I have an eye for vengeance. I swear they will pay, in blood, for their actions, for their cruelty, and most of all, their arrogance.
“Let’s join up with the others. We’ll bury Jenni and Tubb. Then, we’ll go to Grimdale so we could gather a sizable force against Uprising. You will have your chance.”
Raverad helped Joshua get back up on his feet. He helped the weeper walk back up the hill slope. The Apostle stared at the grasses lit golden by the morning sun. He looked up to see the castle, standing silently. Before, it would have looked triumphant. Today, it looked dead.

Chapter 15 - Welcome Back
The group settled at the carnival town. Pyros had moved ahead to scout Grimdale. Meanwhile the rest of the team was waiting for the ranger to return. Earn and Delfias were taking watch to make sure Uprising did not get the jump on them again. The bodies of Jenni and Tubb were buried at the castle.
Raverad was sitting in the church. He sat on the left side of the aisle on the first row, right next to Joshua. Sean respectfully was waiting outside. Joshua had stopped crying, but his despair was not over. His eyes were worn and wide open as though he did not sleep for days. The gleaming trace of his tears ran down his cheeks. He shivered even though the sun beat on the land hard today.
“All I wanted to do was to protect her,” he finally talked. His first words since the battle. “Now I just want to bring her back to life.” He looked up into the Apostle’s eyes. “Do you think there is a way?”
“I’m sorry,” Raverad said. “Necromancy does raise the dead, but it never restores who the person was.”
Joshua turned back to the podium. He leaned forwards and covered his eyes. His hands rubbed across his face until his fingers left his chin. Without another word, he just stood up and walked away.
Raverad did not look back to see him walk out. He heard Joshua’s footsteps break the silence between them. The echo soon dissipated and then ceased, followed by the crunching of grass and soil. Another set of clopping footsteps on wood began to ring from the entrance. They got closer and closer until the one walking towards him took a seat where Joshua was.
“Any wounds from the battle?” Sean asked. “It won’t be so easy to patch any up now with Jenni gone. Joshua was trained, but he does not seem to be in the right mood to help.”
“I worry for him as Jenni did,” Raverad said. “I want to help him, but I don’t know how.”
“Uprising really did it this time. They took the lives of two of our own, and they hurt another emotionally. Joshua may become a hindrance to our group. It’s all the more reason for us to help him.”
“I hope our coming war with Uprising will carry him back on our side.”
“What if he joins back up with them?”
“What do they have to offer for him anymore. All he wants is for Jenni and his family to be alive. No bandit clan would be able to give that to him. In addition, Joshua would scorn Uprising for taking Jenni’s life.
“On the subject of the war, do you think we could convince Equilibrium to fight with us?”
Sean’s response was some mad raised eyebrow.
“Well, they are against Uprising, right?”
“True, but they don’t invade. Their whole premise is to divide the region between the north and south, keeping the bandits north while the others live peacefully in the south. It’s a good ideal, but the just don’t want to take the fight to the bandits. Also, they’ve gotten more zealous over the past few months, especially their leader, Morgan.”“I will give it a try,” Raverad said.
“You may introduce another enemy to fight against,” Sean warned. “I’m just saying.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Well, you will get your chance to talk with him,” the ranger announced.
Raverad and Sean both jumped in their seats as they turned to meet Pyros. Neither of them must of heard him walk in.
“Morgan seems to be engaging in some diplomatic relations with the city. Everyone is talking at the courthouse right now.”
“This sounds a bit good,” Raverad said. “How is the population? Is the whole town over at the meeting.”“They number a dozen with most in leather armour. Three had chain armour and seemed to be their leaders.”
“I know a few of them personally,” said Raverad. “Hopefully we could negotiate. In the end, at least one of them would be on our side.”

As they passed the empty inn at the entrance, the first thing they heard was the cluster of chatter coming from the courthouse. Even though the rest of Grimdale was quiet, this was the most active the city has been since the outbreak. For once, the group couldn’t even hear their crunching footsteps on the gravel road.
The sunlight beamed harder down here than where they were. Raverad and the others had to walk in the shade to stay cool. He was at the front, staring down at the wide open entrance into the courthouse filled with a dozen people. There did not seem to be any zombies around, which pleased him to know that the survivors were probably no longer afraid of their own shadow.
Pyros was up on the rooftops. The ranger was a hidden card to play in case anything went wrong. He didn’t seem to mind the heat of the sun even with his dark cloak. Raverad could only imagine what kind of training rangers had to go through to become the dextrous guild that they are. He still wanted to talk to Pyros about what Galvin said.
Sean followed close behind the Apostle. Joshua huddled in the middle of the back, trying hard to hold back his signs of despair. Delfias and Earn were at the back, keeping watch for zombies, or worse Uprising.
As Raverad walked the steps and passed the columns of the entrance, one of the people turned to notice the newcomers walk in. The man tapped on a woman’s shoulder. She looked too. Soon, all the others faced the incoming group. Their jumble of conversation ceased, supplemented by the footsteps of the arrivals.
Then, the attention of the four people upstairs was drawn. Three of them wore mail armour. One Raverad recognized as Ezra. When they first met, he wore leather armour. He wondered where the mail came from. It did not look like the guard issue. The younger man next to him he knew was Zack. The other two were complete strangers to him. The one in what used to be pristine leather armour seemed more displeased in seeing Raverad’s group than surprised.
Ezra looked down at the people gathered in the courthouse. “It’s alright everyone,” he called out to them. “I know the man in the front. He is a friend.”
“Who is he?” the leather armoured man from the balcony asked.
“A friend we met a while ago,” Zack answered.
“I can tell.” The vexed man looked at Raverad with a harsh glare. “I want to know what he is doing here.”
“I’m here to join the discussion about Uprising,” Raverad said.
The crowd began to talk among themselves again.
“Raverad, why don’t you come up here so we don’t have to shout over the courthouse,” Ezra suggested.
The Apostle nodded. After telling his group to wait downstairs, he made his way passed the crowd. It had been a long time since he was among a group of people this condensed in one room. Once he made it to the staircase on the other side, the Apostle felt more free without the herd of bodies around him. He ascended to the second floor. The faces of the four people upstairs came into view, all staring at him with a different kind of curiosity in their eyes. Only the leather armoured man seemed more unfriendly than the rest. That man was probably Morgan.
“Interestingly enough, we have been discussing about Uprising too,” the leather armoured man said. “Equilibrium clan has protected Grimdale from Uprising for a week ever since they became more of a threat. It’s costing us. We need more bodies. Grimdale must assimilate with Equilibrium.”
“So what’s the problem?” Raverad turned to Ezra.
“Our people are willing to fight, no doubt,” Ezra said. “But they want to end Uprising. Equilibrium only seeks to hold them back.”
“We have no business with the bandits in the north!” the Equilibrium clan said with his fist hitting the balcony railing.
“Please mister... um...” Raverad did not want to assume this man was Morgan without a confirmation.
“Morgan,” he answered. “And you had no business dealing with Uprising either.”
Raverad was right. Morgan was dressed professionally with clothing one would wear before the outbreak, but the other aspects about him look worn out. He scratched his messy beard seemingly without a care in the world. Morgan looked as though he went to work professionally as usual and then returned home to get drunk immediately.
“Why not?” the Apostle asked.
“Your group is strong. I do not want another superpower to rise in the conflict between the Equilibrium and Uprising.”
“We are enemies of Uprising as well. Our group and the people of Grimdale.”
“That makes no difference. Another power would surely complicate the balance of....”
“Enough, Morgan!” Ezra ordered. “We will offer them sanctuary here and assistance. You will return to Portsmouth without our admission to your pathetic clan!”
“Ezra please,” Raverad said. He turned to Morgan. “Listen, you may want to rethink your ideals. Please just hear me out.”
Morgan crossed his arms. “Very well. I’m listening.”
“Uprising is a problem to the survivors of the south. Holding them back will just give them a chance to keep coming. It won’t stop them, no matter how much you threaten them or hold them back. Bandits are tenacious. They will stop at nothing to get what they want. Precious metals, weapons, potions, territory, recruits, slaves, women, and maybe even food. The only way to deal with them is to eliminate them entirely. Do you understand?”
There was a brief pause. Morgan’s expression did not change at all. His visage was as hard as a rock. Then, he raised his hands and clapped once. He clapped repeatedly with a second long intervals. His face was still the same.
“Bravo,” he said. “Impressive. I’m absolutely shocked. This is definitely something that has never crossed my mind.”
Raverad was absolutely peeved by his obvious and mocking sarcasm.
“Let me provide you with a few points of my own,” Morgan continued. “The point of us survivors is to survive. Taking the fight to the bandits is not our business. It is not even a wise choice. Uprising has a net of allies from different clans. Even if they were alone, our numbers would match with theirs. There would be pointless slaughter on both sides, but the victor would likely be them. Even if we did win, there would be hardly any of us left. And then what? The other clans would take up the opportunity to scour the last of us in the south.” He walked towards the staircase but stopped when he was inches away from Raverad’s face. “I won’t let you take all of us down with you.”
With those final words, Morgan took his time to walk down the staircase. The crowd downstairs became silent again once they saw the leather armoured leader of Equilibrium. He did not bother to look at them as he walked away. The people opened up a gap in between them so that he could get through. They did this more out of perplexed fear than respect.
After a long moment of silence, when Morgan was already several yards away from Grimdale, Raverad finally spoke up. He walked towards the railings of the balcony and looked down at the group below before raising his voice.
“We can’t just let Uprising continue their bandit empire of terror,” the Apostle preached to the crowd. “Morgan would have been right about everything if it were not for one thing he was wrong about. Uprising is the glue of the network of clan alliances. With them gone, the bandit clans will turn on each other to lay claim of domination.
“So what say all of you? Will you fight against the threat that you so desire to vanquish?”
There was another moment of awkward silence. Even his own group members were hesitant to answer. Raverad gripped the railings even tighter, praying that his words would influence some people.
“I’m with you, Apostle,” came Pyros’s voice.
Raverad turned his head to see the ranger leaned against a wall in the shadows on the same floor. He did not even see or hear him come in.
“Same here,” Zack said next.
Ezra put a hand on Raverad’s shoulder. “Definitely.”
“Come on then!” the Apostle heard Sean call to the crowd. He drew his sword into the air. “Raise your weapon if you are with us.”
The first weapons to immediately show were Raverad’s own sword, Pyros’s bow, Earn’s sword, Delfias’s bow, and the blades of Ezra and Zack. Then someone raised a woodcutter’s axe in the middle of the crowd. Following that were two bows and a sword. Soon, every person had a weapon raised. Joshua was one of the last to unsheath his sword.
“Come on, Locke,” Zack told the third man in mail armour, who was only a little older than him.
Locke was hesitant at first, but he joined the others in agreeing to defeat Uprising once and for all.
“Welcome back,” Ezra said to Raverad with a big smile.

Chapter 16 - Preparations
Raverad stood by the podium of the church looking through a book Agni’s sacred texts. Right now, all of Grimdale was in military training. Earn and Zack were leading this at the courthouse. They planned to do two days of this before sending them off into battle. Joshua should have been out there too, but he chose to stay in the church. He just sat at the corner of the seats, staring out the window with a long face, his hand just barely supporting his lazy head. Raverad really wanted to help him, but he did not know how.
Delfias and Sean walked inside. Raverad looked up, pretending he was surprised to see them even though he heard their footsteps echo down the hall. They stood next to him without saying anything for the first few minutes while the Apostle kept looking through his book.
“You should be out there with the others?” Sean finally said. “It was you who inspired them after all.”
“Were you looking for me because I wasn’t there?” Raverad responded. “Or were you looking for me for a different reason and didn’t manage to find me where you thought I was?”
Sean and Delfias glanced at each other before answering.
“Pyros has been looking for you,” Delfias announced.
“He’s looking for me?”
“Sorry, poor choice of words. He wants to see you but in private. He sent us rather than showing himself in public. I guess he thought you were over at the courthouse too.”
“Where is he?”
“He said for you to meet him in the small house just south of the courthouse,” Sean answered. “Don’t bother asking us what he wants. We don’t know.”
Without another word, Raverad stored his book with the others in the build-in shelf of the podium. He quietly passed by Sean on the way out. As he reached the hallway, he looked behind him. Sean sat down by Joshua to try and talk to him. Raverad doubted he would help any better. Delfias decided to look through the same book the Apostle was looking at. Raverad still felt like he did not know the Byseford scientist or his warrior friend very well, even though they were a part of his group for a long time. Disregarding this thought, he continued to leave.

Apparently, the old ranger found some lockpicks in Grimdale and wanted to use them for something. He spoke of the safehouses and how Grimdale was supposed to be a special one. Only the leaders of the safehouses and Pyros knew of the locations.
He spoke of one underground in Grimdale that once was the lair of the Thieves Guild. After the Great War, when the Thieves Guild party was driven out, the rangers requested that it would be used as the safehouse of Grimdale. And so, it was turned into a sanctuary and escape route in case anything went wrong.
The pungent stench of the sewers was unbearable for Raverad, but Pyros did not seem to be affected at all. He wondered if the Thieves Guild was also used to this and if they ever were identified by smell rather than uniform. The two of them reached a large, cylindrical area with a large, fountain-like drain at the bottom. Pyros guided Raverad downwards as they jumped into the water. An awful taste as horrible as the smell invaded the Apostle’s mouth when their splash landing hit his face. He hoped that the rest of the way was not as bad. Raverad took a deep breath and pinched his nose tightly as he followed Pyros into the fountain drain.
They ended up on top of a staircase, gazing into a narrow hallway, completely empty of sewer water. The rest of the sludge was sinking deeper into the earth through a different drain. It was dark at first. Pyros took a step off of the staircase. Suddenly, the floor beneath him illuminated brightly. Raverad had to shield his eyes because of it. When his vision adjusted, he could see the bottom half of Pyros’s face more clearly. All he could notice that he did not see before was the scar that ran down his face.
“Keep up,” he said. “It’s easy to get lost down here.”
Raverad nodded as he followed him through the hallway. It was an entire labyrinth. There were so many twists and turns around stone brick walls. Pyros navigated the area like he could see right through them. The Apostle actually struggled to keep up.
He finally decided that this was his tie to talk. Raverad started with a different subject than what was on his mind. “So when Grimdale fell, did its governor help the people escape?” he asked.
“When I was there when the outbreak started, the Grimdale ranger leader, Benji, told me of how the whole sewer system was sabotaged by bandits,” Pyros answered. “Leaving the citizens sitting ducks, the bandits swarmed in and killed them. Benji escaped and saved me when I arrived. As for the Grimdale Governor, I heard that he helped many people escape by boat. That was how Uprising started. Lucas disagreed with retreat and wanted to fight. He treated the fight against the undead almost vengefully, I heard.
“Speaking of Uprising, in case you were wondering what we were doing down here, I want to see if there is a way to fix the systems. If we can, we could make a surprise attack on Uprising. There are also stored weapons down here to give to our citizens up above. Wooden swords and leather armour won’t be enough against Uprising.”
“You know a lot about this place.”
“Only the other safehouse leaders and I knew. Other rangers would not be trusted. A lot of secrecy even amongst our own ranks.”
He paused for a moment. Raverad stopped right behind him. The ranger seemed to be thinking to himself. The Apostle noticed his cowl move, as though he was shaking his head. Then, he continued walking. Raverad followed. They had nothing to say for another minute or so.
The two of them eventually reached the end of the maze. It was a small room of stone bricks. The floors no longer lit with every step. There was a spiral input socket for an activation rune across the room. Pyros walked up to it. He waved his hand for Raverad to stay close to him. The ranger drove his lockpicks into the socket hole and began his gingerly work.
“Fun fact, none of us rangers need the proper activation rune,” he said without taking his attention away from the lockpicks. “The respective activation rune was given to the Grimdale Governor in case the rangers were never around. As for us, we just use our lockpicks.”
There was a satisfying click. Pyros removed his lockpicks quickly. Suddenly, the floor beneath them opened up and the two of them came falling into more sewer water. No, Raverad thought. He could not smell or taste the same foulness of the waste water up above. This water tasted salty and smelled like the beach. It was ocean water.
Pyros was already on the walkways on the side. He lowered his hand to the Apostle, who gladly accepted it. The ranger helped pull Raverad out of the water. His cloak was soaked, but Pyros was not affected any differently.
“Listen,” Raverad tried to say. “I wanted to talk to you about Galvin.”
Pyros turned to the Apostle, now intrigued. Something about his attention was not of worry or tension, rather of relief.
“I just wanted to ask about what Galvin said. About you blowing up the wizard’s tower and causing the spread of the undead.”
Pyros took a deep breath before speaking. “He was right about one thing: I did blow open the wizard’s tower and unleashed the zombies inside. For a while, I thought that it was all my fault that the undead were spreading across the earth. It wasn’t until later that I realized that it wasn’t all me. The zombies were already coming. Their threat was smaller at the time, limited to Agni Ignis. The curious wizards had taken specimens to examine and experiment with. I was given a contract to blow open the wizard’s tower. Unknowingly, I accelerated the outbreak. It was an uncalculated mistake, but I am glad to know that it was not entirely my fault.”
“What have you been doing since then?”
“It was eventually discovered that Crimson was attempting to control the undead. That was when I knew that he was the cause of the outbreak. I stopped him with the help of Agni. His power was not enough to stop the plague yet, so I was tasked to wait until his power returned so I could end the necromancy once and for all.”
“How did Crimson act in the mortal world? How did he do what he did?”
“I’m not exactly sure, but when I was fighting him, he was using a surrogate who called himself Dark. Whoever this was, he infused a portion of the Red Demon’s imprisoned power at the temple in the eastern desert. Through this possession, Dark attempted to orchestrate his master’s will.”
“So if you defeated Crimson before, how is he back now?”
“When I defeated him, I thought his power was contained by Agni forever. I was right, but it was only one portion of his power. The other was imprisoned in a different location, the Hell Tree. Galvin managed to get his hands on it and now acts as the new surrogate of the Red Demon. This time though, I do not have the power to destroy or contain his power. So, I plan to hold him at bay until Agni’s power returns.”
“I understand. I just can’t shake the thought that Crimson would access the power of necromancy. Much of his previous actions of malice involved fire magic, or any of the fusion disciplines that were birthed from fire.”
“What is necromancy birthed from?” Pyros asked.
Raverad’s eyes widened. “All of them,” he breathed. “Fire, earth, water, and air. Indirectly through, via the fusion disciplines, but it makes sense. The Red Demon has gathered many cards to play over time. I hope we could succeed in countering against his schemes.”
“I do to, and the first thing we need to do is to prepare for Uprising. With them out of the way, the Red Demon’s servants would have no allies to hide them. Come on, let me show you the place.”
The two of them reached a large room. It was mostly empty with the exception of the columns that supported the ceiling. There were two other rooms on each side and an iron door up ahead. To the left of the door there were a series of levers. Each one was responsible to open up a sewer entrance to another town. Pyros tested each lever and none worked. The one closest to the iron door seemed to activate the door itself.
“That is a correct instalment,” Pyros said.
They exited through the iron door and found a chest. Raverad opened it and found some good military gear. There was a full suit of mail armour, a stone sword, a bow, and plenty of arrows.
“I suppose these are the weapons and armour you were referring to,” the Apostle said.
He received a nod from the ranger in response. “Not as much as there was a few months ago, but it will have to do.”
Raverad helped Pyros carry the weapons and armour out of the exit. It was a short narrow hallway that led to a ladder. After a long climb, they ended up swimming out of the water fountain at the northeast corner of Grimdale. At least it wasn’t another sewer, Raverad thought to himself.

That night, Raverad was faced with a request that would end up breaking him. He was walking over to the inn at the front of Grimdale to sleep when someone came up to him before he could reach its entrance.
“Wait, priest!” the man said.
“Apostle Raverad,” he corrected.
The man had a worried look on his skinny face. It was not someone he knew, probably one of the Grimdale survivors who hid in his home for the past few months. Raverad could tell that this man was encountering a problem. He could only guess what it was, but even his imagination was not good enough to be correct.
“Sorry, sir, but I have a request, please,” he said with a quick, shaking voice.
“What’s wrong?” Raverad asked.
“Come please,” he said.
The two of them walked under the light of the moon and the stars. Raverad followed the man into a habitation building at the other side of town. As they entered, the Apostle could smell the foul odor of the undead, although it was not strong or fresh enough to be anything recent. Whatever zombies that created that smell were gone now. They went across one of the rooms to reach a staircase. At the top of the steps was a door with planks nailed into it. When the townsfolk were hiding, they must have barred the door the whole time. Now it was ajar, but not forced by the undead. There were woodchips all over the floors. This was fairly recent.
They climbed to the second floor, where they entered a small room. Sitting on a bed was a woman. Her face looked pale and her eyes were shaken with desperation. Raverad scanned the room to understand what was going on. His eyes eventually came to the end table by the bed. Sitting on its surface was a petri dish filled with a pale pink liquid. He recognized it and understood what it meant.
“Is that…?” he asked.
“The very ones manufactured by Byesford,” said the young man. “The results are positive. She’s pregnant.”
“Well… congratulations?” Raverad was wondering what the issue was.
“Do you not understand?” the man asked. “Do you know what will happen?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” the Apostle said.
“Do you not know what happens to unborn children?”
“You mean after the outbreak? I woke up on the shoreline after two months of stuff I cannot remember. Sorry, you will have to explain.” Something in Raverad’s gut told him that this was going to be unpleasant.
Before he began speaking, he guided the Apostle out of the room. After closing the door, the man let out a sigh.
“Ever since the outbreak, pregnant women who are but a month or two away from giving birth were killed by their own unborn children. I’ve seen it happen myself early on from someone in Grimdale. The virus or whatever is in the air would infect the unborn child or something and turn it into a zombie just as it would a corpse. Then… you probably would imagine what happens next.”
Raverad was almost stunned. Chills ran down his spine. His very heart beat faster in anxiety. Such a gruesome image was just repulsive. He glanced at the door.
“Does she know about it?” the Apostle asked.
“Yes definitely,” the young man answered. “I just closed the door so she doesn’t have to hear about it again. We knew about it before we… did it. We even used the contraceptives, but they didn’t work just one time. Apostle, sir, I am asking you for an abortion.”
This made Raverad’s head flare with a burning dread. Abortions were once practiced by the priests and Apostles themselves through the use of magic. He had to partake in such acts as well until he joined the voices of other priests to end it. As a result, the region banned the practice and Byesford created the alternate option of contraceptives. Normally, he would refuse such a request, but this was a matter of life or death.
“I’ll do it,” Raverad said with a silent gulp.
“Oh, thank you so much,” the man said.
The two of them reentered the room. The young girl was lying on the bed. Raverad slowly approached her. She lifted her shirt slightly to expose her lower belly. Obviously, the pregnancy had not yet gone too far, so this would be an easy task in terms of complexity. It would still be hard on Raverad considering that he opposed this in addition to learning what else the outbreak has done to humanity.
He removed his mail gloves. The Apostle was very hesitant for a good minute. Then, he pressed his hands on the woman’s belly. He could feel the presence of another soul rolling and developing inside of her. This action reminded him of the prayer he would make before performing the action. Raverad took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and muttered.
“By the power of Agni and the will of Pulvia and at the mercy of Therum, I send this soul back in the care of our beloved Simoon. May this soul find his way into another one day. Bless it until then.”
Still with his eyes closed, he felt a surge of warmth beneath his fingertips. Then, the very sensation that he experienced, that any priest experienced, returned to him, the very reason why the religious order was against this. He heard the unborn child’s soul scream. It was almost telepathic as it echoed from everywhere around him and from within him. It brought the same pain of heart one would feel if anyone who was not a ruthless murderer killed someone in cold blood. In a sense that was what happened.
When it was done, Raverad opened his eyes again. The woman’s skin where his hands were was briefly glowing a red-orange before receding quickly. She sat up quickly, looking up at the Apostle.
“Did it work?” she asked.
Raverad gave a nod and tried his best to smile.
“Oh, thank the gods!” she cried out.
Her eyes watered as she gave a heavy embrace to her lover. They both shared this moment of joy with laughter and tears of relief. After that, the man came to Raverad and shook his hand.
“Thank you very much, Apostle,” he said. “I cannot fathom how to thank you enough for this.”
“No worries,” Raverad said. “I’m always happy to help.”
“Oh, by the way, my name is Thaddius,” the man said.
“And I’m Lesslie,” the woman said. “Thank you so much for saving my life. Gods bless you, dear Apostle.”
Raverad smiled. He did not have anything else to say, so he began to take his leave.

The Apostle did not return to the inn. Instead, he went to the church. His mind reeled with thoughts that battled each other as he stared out the window into the star-lit sky.
The abortion did not bother him as much as he thought. It was like killing a zombie, which in a sense, it was. What really bothered him was what Thaddius said about what happens to unborn children in this new world. Grotesque as it was to think about, the true effect it had was the thought of humanity’s future.
If this was a thing that happens to all unborn children, would there be any hope of the survival of the human race? So long as this necromancy remained, there would be no means of human reproduction. It was all the more reason for him to help Pyros defeat the Red Demon and end the undead forever. One one hand, it gave him a sense of purpose, but on the other hand, it crushed his hope for the future of humankind.
He suddenly heard footsteps behind him. Raverad saw the still saddened Joshua slowly walk into the room, completely disregarding the Apostle’s presence. The poor man walked over to where he was sitting earlier today to stare back out of the window.
Raverad did not know what to say to him or do with him. How could he help this man if he could not even help himself now?

Chapter 17 - The War Begins
“Ok, who should we bring?” Raverad asked Earn, who had recruits lined up outside the courthouse.
Earn walked in front of the line. He was looking at each person. “Hmm.” The knight reached a specific young man. “Jackson here is one of our best close quarters fighters.”
The Apostle approached the boy. The young man brushed his black hair away from his blue eyes with his fingers. He had a woodcutting axe resting in his other hand.
“Do you think you need a more efficient weapon than that?” Raverad asked.
“No, it’s quite alright,” he responded. “I am more used to an axe than a sword.”
“Here,” Raverad signaled Pyros to bring the bag of gear they found in the safehouse. “At least wear this mail helmet to protect your head.” He pulled it out and gave it to him. “Will you come?”
“Yes, my Apostle.”
He tried not to frown because he did not like being seen as a leader. Sean saw him otherwise, but Raverad was not used to it with many more people.
Earn pulled out another man. “Thaddius here is an excellent archer. He made nine bullseyes in a row.”
“Thaddius,” Raverad said. “A pleasure to see you again!” Indeed it was good to see a familiar face again, but he still dreaded his words. “Glad to know that you are a part of the team.”
“I will follow,” Thaddius said. “Consider this a thanks for saving my love’s life.”
“And I’m thanking you the same way,” Lesslie’s head peaked right next to Thaddius. She too carried a bow.
“Take these extra arrows,” Raverad gave them ten more arrows. “You will need more to share amongst yourselves.”
Next, Earn pulled out Ezra and one other guy. “Ezra definitely volunteers. He will act as sergeant of the Grimdale recruits for the Yawpton attack party. Also, Caliban here requests for a stronger weapon than his wooden sword.”
Raverad gave Caliban the stone sword from the bag and welcomed the two along. “Earn, you come along with me lead the group. Sean will stay here to keep training them. That will be all for now.”
“Apostle,” Sean cried out from a distance. He ran over to Raverad with a sprint. “Raverad, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Joshua is gone.”
“What?!” Earn responded.
“He left a note saying not to follow him. Raverad, we should send a search party and….”
“No, we should let him go,” Raverad responded. “There’s nothing we could do. He’s had enough. If he wants to join with Jenni in Simoon’s realm, then we will let him.”
“You’re giving up on him?!” Sean shouted.
“Look, he probably left ages ago. He could be anywhere by now. This is what he wants. We should respect his wishes.”
“What, just letting him go out and kill himself?!”
“Enough, Sean!” Raverad had to take a deep breath. He let his frustration boil a little too much. “Please, just let it go.” He turned to the gathered attack party. “Let’s move out!”

The seven of them started to go to Yawpton without going into the desert. They tried to avoid Equilibrium but that was not possible. They made it to the ruined bridge and there was a firefight going on. Uprising in chain armour on the grass and Equilibrium in chain armour on the sand. They were both equal in number and both using archers. Equilibrium archers stayed close to the bridge for cover while Uprising used the trees. All of them fired at will, but the storm of arrows still seemed to go back and forth. Anyone who would cross the water would not survive. Dead bodies, twice slain after they turned, were floating in the water with many arrows through their broken bodies.
Thaddius and Lesslie were the first to act. At once, they drew back their bows and fired. Lesslie shot someone among the Equilibrium group while Thaddius fired at Uprising. They only managed to do wounds, but they grabbed the attention. Not much happened afterwards. Uprising immediately retreated to the north and Equilibrium fell back to the east. They were probably afraid that the interference would make the battle more one sided.
This was not good, Raverad thought. If Morgan was informed of their intervention, then Grimdale would be in trouble. Fortunately, the Apostle was prepared for this. If Equilibrium was to attack Grimdale, he still had a sizable force left behind to defend.
Raverad turned to the others. “I would like a volunteer to keep watch of the bridge in case Equilibrium returns.”
Jackson raised his axe in the air without a word from his mouth. The Apostle waved him over so he could come closer to Raverad.
“Listen, stay alert,” he told the young man. “If trouble comes by, run directly to Yawpton. We will come back as soon as we can to get you back in the group. Understood?”
He nodded silently.
Raverad could tell by his unshaken eyes that he was fearless. The Apostle smiled knowing that they had at least one determined fighter with them.
“The rest of you, follow me to Yawpton,” he announced.

The entrance to Yawpton was heavily guarded. As the sun rose high, Raverad was waiting for them to switch shifts so they would be distracted for a moment. And a moment was all they needed.
A bulky figure in iron armour marched inside the front entrance. His stature was great, especially wearing such high-grade military armour, vandalized by the symbols of Uprising. His tan face was tightly frowning. That along with his sharp chin and powerful eyebrows made him seem like an intimidating person to speak to face to face. If that was not enough, he also carried a peculiar looking bow on his back. It was uniquely designed and bigger than any bow Raverad had ever seen. Along with is was a large quiver with scores of arrows. On his belt was a massive sheath carrying a large sword.
Behind him was a woman in leather armour. She created a completely different impression than the man she followed. Her sleek, black hair split into two different directions and rolled down to her shoulders. The sheath that held her sword bore many glyphs that seemed almost Tristitian in origin. There was a terrible grin on her face as though she had done something despicable. Where the larger man created a sense of fearsomeness around him, the woman instead seemed rather disturbing, perhaps even in an unnatural way.
“Doctor Def!” The big guy yelled. His voice was deep, powerful, and authoritative. No doubt this was the leader of something. “Have you stitched up all our soldiers?”
“Yes,” came the faint call of a bandit from within Yawpton. This Doctor Def could not be seen from this location.
The arriving man and woman disappeared out of sight too as they walked through the entrance.“Good. I want all soldiers from here to Frostbain to rally here. We will mass our forces to crusade across the desert. I hear of new interlopers. I want them all slaughtered by sundown tomorrow. If they somehow have us overrun, we must retreat to Al Hasa and perform a scorched earth tactic. They will never have their victory. They fight as fools and will die as fools!”
Raverad had heard this kind of talk from almost any bandit leader during the Bandit Wars that followed the Great War. Normally, he would laugh at this sort of thing. He remembered a particularly snarky bandit with an irritating, high-pitch voice threatening him when he first moved into the Aeternalis Cathedral. Before that time, Raverad had always feared bandit raids. Eventually, it was just sad and pathetic to listen to the rants and anger of the bandit leaders and the ‘wanna-be’ bandit leaders. This time though, it was different. The way this leader projected his harsh voice was a hammer blow to his heart. Simply by speaking, this bandit leader was actually terrifying.
Now it seemed as everyone was distracted as they organized. Two bandits ran out of the gates and hugged the eastern walls as they made their way out of Yawpton. They were probably the couriers heading to Frostbain for reinforcements. That did not matter to the Apostle. It was too far away to be a problem within the next hour at the least. What Raverad really was interested in were the guards at the entrance. They were about to switch shifts.
Their attack plan was based on covering all the entrances to trap the bandits inside. He, Earn, and Ezra would go through the front gates first. They would ambush the guards and then get to the guard tower. Once that happens, the other half of their group would come in from the breach at the western wall. From there, Thaddius and Lesslie would provide cover fire and surprise Uprising with another angle of attack. Caliban would defend them as best he could from any bandit who gets too close. Now was the time.
All three of them jumped out from behind the trees. The switching guards barely had enough time to react. Raverad grabbed a bandit by the arms and twisted it behind his back. Earn smashed his sword into the bandit’s head twice. Ezra swiped his sword at another bandit’s belly armour. The bandit staggered back for a moment before he picked himself up to duel his opponent. His fingers fiddled with the hilt of his blade loosely, so Ezra took advantage of that and knocked the blade out of his hands. Then, Ezra removed the bandit’s helmet before punching him hard enough to knock him out. Earn walked up to finish the job but Ezra stopped him.
“Letting them turn will slow us down,” he said. “Just knock them out so we don’t have to deal with them twice.”
Earn simply nodded before following Raverad into the town. The three of them made a hard sprint towards the central tower. The Apostle’s head bobbed as he ran. He turned his head to the left. Past the approaching bandits was the second half of their group.
Lesslie and Thaddius drew their bows and shot the bandits from behind. One of the bandits fell to the ground with a pair of arrows through her back. Another three bandits stopped in their pursuit of Raverad’s half of the group and turned to face the other attackers. The first bandit that was brought down rose again with a euphony of growling. One of the bandits engaged against the zombie while the other two took the flanks as they charged the archers. Both archers targeted the bandit coming from the right. Their arrows pinned one of his arms to the wall of a building. The other bandit, increasing his pace as he approached the archers, was knocked to the ground by Caliban, who came around a corner. While the bandit was down, Caliban swung his foot into the face.
Suddenly, Raverad’s entire body tensed when he saw it. There was a distant whistle of an arrow, followed by the splat of flesh and crack of bone. Lesslie turned her head to her left. An arrow was through Thaddius’s head. She cried out in anguish as another arrow split through the first, killing her lover again once he turned undead. With sobbing tears, she dropped her bow, fell to her knees, and crawled to the deceased archer. She took the flimsy corpse into a deep embrace.
“Earn, Ezra!” Raverad called to his companions. “Someone is attacking from the western flank. Hold the tower. Climb if you need to.”
The Apostle then bolted out the way he came in. His feet kicked him off of the ground with much force repeatedly. He felt the restraints of lassitude as he surged forwards, but he ignored them as best he could. His breathing was hard with warm air becoming cold as it entered his mouth.
With a bobbing head, he watched Galvin stride out from behind the outside wall. The wizard casually walked up behind Lesslie, who did not seem to notice him. His blade raised in the air, ready to execute the woman.
The Apostle forced himself with all his might to intercept. He was within swinging range of Galvin.
It was then that the wizard shifted his stance rather quickly. As though it were planned, he made a swift counter-attack before Raverad could make a blow on him. The blade swiftly struck the Apostle across the chest. It was not a perfect blow, but the collision between a springing Raverad and swinging blade was enough to knock him back with broken ribs on the right side. He felt the pain of his insides ruined. There was not even an open wound to worry about. He was on the ground and was forced to watch the real execution take place.
Galvin’s blade twirled in his hand as his smirked increased in size. He turned to Lesslie, only to have his smile disappear almost immediately. Her expression was as fierce as the pull of the arrow on her bowstring. She cursed at Galvin before releasing her fingers. The arrow impaled Galvin’s chest. His anger and pain came out at once with a bellowing roar. His reaction was almost immediate as his blade drove forwards. The sword’s force tore through her armour and then her chest. A deep crimson fountain gushed out. All the anger on her face drained away as much as the blood from her body did, followed by her life. The wizard quickly retracted his blade before swinging it again across her face to ensure the zombie form was slain.
The Apostle grabbed one of his potions. His hands shook as his body was trying to shut itself down from the blow he took. The narrow glass rim reached his lips. Some of the red liquid seeped out and spilled onto his chin and chest, but enough made it into his mouth. As he swallowed painfully, he felt the effects of the potion mend his broken bones. He took no time to hesitate as he slowly stood up again.
Raverad wanted to face Galvin with a burning desire to avenge the fallen. However, he saw someone else intervene as the wizard made his escape. It was the woman who accompanied the bandit leader. Before he was able to react, she swiped a sword at his arm. It did not managed to penetrate his armour and touch his flesh. Facing her, she sneered like an animal at him. Their swords met as they dueled. She had a stone sword but was riddled with a strange green ooze. Her sword hits were very precise and carefully make. Each blow only glanced his armour, but Raverad did not want to have whatever poison was on that sword enter his body. He finally had a reprieve long enough to sidestep successfully from her swing. Her sword swung and suddenly flared with green. It looked as though it rebelled against its master. She staggered back in pain. Raverad returned the swing by smashing the sword into her arm. The woman staggered back, gripping onto the leather armour that darkened with soaked blood. He was about to make the final blow when an iron armpiece smashed into his face. As Raverad fell, he saw the woman run off towards the west. The single sun in the sky was eclipsed by the towering form of the bandit leader. He raised his diamond sword above Raverad’s read. Then, a few arrows flew towards him, one of which pinged on his armoured sword arm. The leader backed away and ran.
The Apostle felt himself being dragged back to a wall. Whoever helped him, he was picking Raverad back up off of the ground. Raverad turned to thank who he assumed was Caliban, but he saw a different face he recognized. The Aspiremont bandit leader.
“Don’t worry, we fight the same enemy,” he said with a warm smile.
That did not stop Raverad from staggering back. Behind him, he saw the other two ironclad bandit leaders as well as a two other bandits in mail armour. One of them was the man with spiked gauntlets they encountered at Aspiremont. The other was a woman who he could barely recognize.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “What are you all doing here?”
“We want Uprising gone, you want Uprising gone,” the woman in iron armour said. “Can’t you connect the dots?”

Chapter 18 - The Road to Al Hasa
The group settled on the top floor of the archery range building. It was small, but worth it in case Uprising decided to return. They did have trouble fitting nine people in such a cramped space. It was even more difficult with the tension Earn had with them.
“Look, do you care more about your long gone city or the imminate threat of Uprising,” the bandit leader asked.
Earn was quiet for a moment, but his body was still upright and tense.
“Don’t forget the Red Demon,” Raverad whispered into his ear.
The knight calmed as he slumped more comfortably into his seat. He did not chose to eye the bandits though. It was enough to make sure things did not escalate into fights.
“So what is your name?” Raverad asked the leader.
“Cory, former colonel of the Western Kingdom of Grimdale,” he spoke.
The Apostle’s eyes widened. “You a soldier? An officer? What made you become a bandit?”
“I learned that it’s the only way to go these days. But my history has not left me. It’s partly the reason why Uprising wants our heads since I am military authority who is not on their side. If you think that is surprising, their leader, Lucas, was a former general.”
“The one who you saved me from?”“Yes. He didn’t support the peace and resigned his duties when the war ended. Some rumored that he was a member of the Thieves Guild. Nonetheless, he was the best of us. Maybe if he stayed in command, we may have had a chance against these zombies. When the outbreak came, he had contacts already, from both sides. It was amazing how he could rally an entire clan within days of the fall. He must have known something.”
“Is that the bad part?”
“Worse still, when we came in Yawpton just now, I noticed that he had a Shotbow. It was an experimental weapon but was never put to use during the war. Only the generals of the west knew of its existence and only the general who forged it knew of it’s hiding place after the war.”
“Lucas?”
“No, which is why I was surprised that he had one. The general who invented the Shotbow disappeared when the outbreak began. Even his name was a secret.”
“So what drove you all against Uprising?”
“I think the others should be introduced first. This here is Gurro,” he pointed at the ironclad bandit who was younger. “I like to call him my ‘champion’ since he was the first one I teamed up with when this all started. He loves using his own crafted grenades. Our spirits were always kept up with his musical guitar skills. Yeah, I know, bandits into music. That was a long time ago before we lost Al Hasa.
“Anyways, this here is Brenda,” he pointed at the female iron bandit. “She was a lieutenant of mine since the war and I met up with her again a while after the outbreak. It was her who drove me into bandit-hood. She was a brutal leader of a pack of weaker bandits. After applying my leadership, her brutality, and Gurro’s talent in battle and music, we made a good trio. The fourth leader you killed was Peter, who was supposed to be our diplomat to talk with other bandit clans.
“As for the other two, the man here is George,” he indicated the respective man in mail armour. “He was a big bar brawler before the outbreak. Fists were so big of a passion that he made these custom spiked gauntlets to punch zombies and people alike.”
“These hands aren’t just for punching,” George said. His hand reached for Brenda’s chestplate when the woman grabbed him by the arm and forced it behind his back.
“Don’t even dare,” she sneered before pushing him onto the ground.
“Really?” Guerro said. “Not even drunk and already making dirty moves.”
Raverad could not help but chuckle at the situation. For the first time in what seemed like an eternity, his spirits were lifted. He really needed that after watching two friends die today.
“And finally, this is Jenna,” Cory continued. He indicated the woman in mail armour. “She is one of our medics, well our only one now. We found her after Al Hasa.”
“Huh, we had a medic named Jenni before,” Raverad said. “It’s quite a coincidence that you two have similar names.”
Jenna simply smiled.
“Anyways, to answer your question, we were driven from Al Hasa by Uprising. Some part of us wanted revenge, but I wanted to keep us alive, so we held Aspiremont. After the attack of Uprising, I realized that the only way for us to truly be safe was to eliminate their clan once and for all. With our united groups, we could bring them down to their knees.
“But let me ask, why are you after Uprising?”
Raverad found it difficult to explain. He told them about the encounter at Yawpton the first time, where he met Sean. Then, he spoke about Camp Bell and their adventure onwards. Finally, he talked about the deaths of Tubb and Jenni by the hands of Uprising. He decided not to mention Crimson just in case any of Cory's people were secretly cultists.
“So what’s the plan?” Cory asked, returning the subject to Uprising.
“Well, we have two options,” Raveard said. “We either continue to Al Hasa to strike at the heart of Uprising or we go back and regroup with the others.”
“I say we should send a messenger back to Grimdale,” Cory suggested. “He or she would inform them to meet us at Al Hasa.”
“Let’s send this guy,” Brenda indicated George before slapping his hand that was slowly running up her leg.
“No, we’ll just try to keep him in a separate room every time we camp,” Earn said. He turned to Caliban. “You should go. The others know you better than our friends from Aspiremont.”
“I’ll leave tomorrow morning,” he replied. “It’s getting dark and we need some sleep if we all will travel.” His head snapped towards the Apostle. “Oh, that reminds me, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find Jackson at the bridge.”
Raverad just remembered giving him the order to collect him after the battle. He forgot once they started talking with the Aspiremont bandits. The same must have been true for Caliban.
“I’m sorry, but there was no trace,” Caliban said. “Not even a body.”
“It’s fine,” the Apostle said. “There’s nothing we could do about it now.” He turned back to Cory. “So we wait here until they arrive?”
“No, we continue to Al Hasa,” Cory said. “We could be the vanguard, delivering the first blow, and before that, tactically investigating the area before the others arrive.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Raverad said. “We will leave tomorrow morning at the break of dawn. Uprising is bound to return. We should have two shifts tonight to keep watch.”
“I’ll take first shift,” Cory said.
“No, I will,” Earn said. “You know, as an… apology for what happened at Aspiremont. Ezra, do you mind taking second shift?”
Ezra shook his head. After that, the group disbanded from their little gathering. They decided to move to the manor where there was more space for sleeping. If someone was keeping watch, it would be easiest from there with only one way in.
“I know you don’t trust them,” Raverad spoke to Earn as they followed behind the others.
“Better safe than sorry,” he replied.
Raverad wished to argue no further. He followed those of his original group to sleep on the first floor. The former bandits took the second and third floor. The Apostle took the small room on the eastern side of the manor. There was no actual bed, so the cold, hard wood floors would suffice.
“I saw it happen,” a female voice came from behind.
Raverad turned around while sitting cross legged see Jenna.
“I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind me intruding,” she said. “You weren’t sleeping. Why?”
The Apostle turned away. Raverad hated getting interrupted. He tried to keep the vexation from being noticeable.
“Just… in my thoughts,” he said. “What about you?”
“Same as you.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I just want to say I’m sorry for what happened to your friends back there.” She paused for a moment. “And the other two you mentioned.”
“There were a few others we’ve lost. Besides, none of those deaths were your fault, or the fault of your little bandit group.”
“Well, then I’m sorry for us capturing you. I wasn’t there during any of it, but….”
Raverad just wanted her to leave. The night was the best time for him to contemplate over his thoughts and he did not want to be disturbed.
“I just wanted to tell you to not let yourself go when things go wrong,” Jenna said, as though she had it in her mind for the whole day. “You’ve had a bad day losing those two. Don’t let that, and everything else, destroy you.”
As he heard footsteps behind him dissipate and grow more distant, Raverad consumed those words repeatedly in his mind. He thought about what Joshua told him before they were captured, and what Raverad told him after Jenni died. Now Joshua was probably dead, most likely by suicide. While he never made the blow himself, the Apostle felt like he did by failing to keep him from falling into total despair.
Raverad never remembered falling asleep.

When the Apostle awoke, he heard a conversation outside. The rest of the manor was silent. He looked out the window, groaning tiredly. He could see Cory and Earn talking. None of them looked aggressive about it. Suddenly intrigued about what was happening, he stood up and walked out to join them. He took slow steps, making the creaks that the wood made under his feet as silent as possible. Others were still sleeping, including (makes him smile) Ezra, slumped by the entrance. If bandits came a few hours ago, they would all have died.
“Well that is good to know,” Cory said. “I understand anything. I could tell you there is nothing to worry about, but I understand your choice.”
“Alright then, truce?” Earn replied.
The two of them shook hands firmly. As Cory walked away, Raverad intercepted the knight for conversation.
“What did you talk to him about?” he asked.
“My decision to take first watch,” Earn answered. “He knew and he spoke to me about it. I can tell he is quite rational for a bandit.”
“Well, he was a colonel.”
The knight said nothing in response before he walked towards the archery range. Raverad took the time to fill his empty water bottles at the fountain. He had an extra one after drinking the potion yesterday. A thought crossed him about making another, and if there was a way without being an alchemy mage.
Then, he heard a bickering coming from the blacksmith. From the corner of his eye, he could see two people walking out of there. Their words were becoming clearer as they came closer. The first voice he heard was Brenda.
“If you didn’t want a boot in your face, you shouldn’t have snuck upstairs to me with your trousers off,” she hissed. Brenda began to fill her empty bottles for water at the fountain as well.
“Come on, babe,” the voice of George replied. “A little sex won’t hurt.”
“With you? No way! And do you remember what happens to women when they get pregnant since the outbreak?”
Raverad remembered well of what Thaddius and Lesslie said. A reminder of that was the last thing he needed this morning. In order to avoid the subject any further, he went over to Ezra, who was probably the only one not awake yet. He shook his shoulder.
“Wha-what?” the mail-clad sleeper mumbled.
“You dozed off,” the Apostle said.
“Oh, sorry. I guess….” He sniffed. “I guess I was just too tired.” He sniffed again. “Did anyone attack? Is everyone fine?” He sniffed once more.
“Ezra, are you sick?” Raverad asked.
“Apostle!” Jenna called from within the manor. “Just telling you that Caliban left for Grimdale.”
“Right, thanks,” he said. “And we probably should get to Al Hasa as soon as possible. Maybe Earn should lead the way since he knows the area very well. Let’s gather everyone around the water fountain so we could decide our route, and fast.”

After a discussion, Earn had mapped out the path of travel towards Al Hasa. It was a three day travel with two night stops on the way. The first was Whitehaven, which would contain some manner of food and civilian supplies for them to scavenge from. It would also be relatively hidden from Uprising, Earn hoped. The next was Frostbane, which was one of the holds of Uprising. With a planned ambush, they could eliminate a number of them before they could retreat to help defend Al Hasa. The fewer bandits defending their main stronghold the better, as Cory said.
The wind was more active today, although still relatively gentle. As the group crossed the woods, Raverad heard the rustle of leaves break the silence of the forest. Again, he wondered how the outbreak made the wilderness so silent. Perhaps the effects of the necromancy affected the animals too? Nonetheless, it still held a sense of beauty and peacefulness. The serenity was all but untouched by the horrible events of the outside world.
It was then when they reached a clearing. A tall, fat ugliness stood in the middle of the forest. The trees seemed to gravitate away from the stone structure. Vines dangled from them, like flimsy arms reaching down for the ground with a lazy effort. A number of inactive corpses were scattered all across the floor and on the staircase.
With the exception of one. Raverad noticed there was something moving on the small, spiral stairs that lead up to the high floors that made up the body of the tower. It was human, tangled in vines. None of its activity was the aggressive nature of a zombie, and if it were an inactive zombie, it would not try to move. The person was crawling his way down very slowly, seemingly using every last reserve of strength to escape something.
Raverad and Ezra decided to go up there to investigate. The others would remain behind to make sure this was not a trap. Both of them had to breath through their mouths as they waddled and hurdled over the dead bodies. Funnily enough, there were absolutely no flies, not a sign of their buzzing.
Once they reached the person wrapped in vines, they immediately turned his body onto his back so they could see his face.
“Holy Pantheon,” Raverad breathed. “It’s Joshua!"

Chapter 19 - Dry
After Ezra cut the vines off of him, Joshua sprang upright, turning his head to the left, then right, then repeated. He looked worried. For the first time since Jenni died, he actually looked alive.
“Joshua, what happened to you?” Raverad asked.
“Not now!” he harshly whispered. At least he was talking now. “Uprising left me here as a trap. We need to leave now!”
The Apostle stood up and faced the others down below. “They’re coming!” he shouted. “Get ready!”
The group below stood in a circle with their backs to each other. Earn drew his sword. George cracked his knuckles with the spiked gauntlets worn. The others pulled out bows and aimed into the thicket. So far, no one was coming. Then, distant shuffling broke the silence.
An Uprising bandit in leather armour sprinted from the woods. That was strange. She was alone, charging towards them, without a weapon, and relatively weak armour compared to the other bandits. And yet, she ran towards them with the blooded omega symbol on her tunic with her light brown hair clinging on to the back of her head like it was no big deal. Within the next few seconds, the mystery was solved.
After Cory and Guerro shot her down, her zombie form joined a massive horde that followed close behind. There must have been at least two dozen of them, too many to be naturally joined together. The archers pelted the undead with a storm of arrows. Zombie corpses on the front fell on their knees as they were slain but those behind them trampled the bodies as they charged. Their growls joined together like the collective buzzing of flies.
George and Earn were the first to attack the zombies in close quarters. Earn’s sword cleaved every limb off a zombie before decapitating its head off. George’s spiked gloves pounded into zombies faces as he turned to face another one momentarily before going back to the one he did not kill first.
Raverad noticed a large part of the horde approaching the tower base. A single file line (quite messy though) of zombies ran up the staircases with incredible speed. Coming around corners of the column that the stairs wrapped around, reaction time was very small. He made a luckily timed kick to knock the first one off. The second one came up almost immediately, but was slain when Raverad flailed his sword downwards onto the zombie’s head.
Before he was able to retract it, a third zombie trampled over the fallen second. It rammed its body right into Raverad. He was forced to lose grip of his blade. His hands were directed in keeping the mouth from reaching his body. The Apostle lost balance on the stairs and tumbled to the ground with the zombie. He blacked out once he hit the ground.

Raverad woke up in a bed. His body was wrapped with blankets that kept him warm. Unexpected cold air touched his exposed face. He turned his head to look out a nearby window. Instead of seeing the green of trees, he saw the white of the snow that covered them. It was night. A girl sat in a chair in the room. She was one of our bandit allies in mail armour. It was Jenna.
He tried to sit up, but there was a sharp pain in his left leg. Raverad lifted a part of the blanket that covered the hurt limb. An introduction of icy air bitt whatever wound he suffered. He could barely see the white and crimson stained bandage that wrapped around his shin.
“You need to rest,” Jenna said. “There were no potions left for any quick healing. At least we still had bandages.”
“What happened?” the Apostle asked.
“I saw you fall of the stairs with that zombie. I managed to kill it before it could tear your throat, but another zombie stumbled by and bit your leg. Fortunately, I had some antidote to spare. When we cleared the horde. we carried you to Whitehaven. Nothing much else happened.”
“And the others?”
“All still alive.” Her smile faded. “But Whitehaven has been picked clean. Everything had been taken. Brenda blamed Earn for making a serious mistake, that he was wrong about this place, but then he mentioned a scorched earth tactic.”
Raverad remembered those words from the Uprising leader.
“That means that Uprising has stripped all these areas of resources for us to collect on the way to Al Hasa,” he said. “I had forgotten about that.”
“Should we head back?”
“I think we have enough food and supplies to last us to Frostbain. Once we get there, we could wait for the others.”
“Alright, but you should sleep for now. That will at least partially help your wound heal faster.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re quite welcome.” Jenna stood up and began to walk out the door.
Raverad rested his back onto the mattress again. The fabric wrapped around his body in a welcoming embrace. Never before did the feeling of an actual bed gift him with blissful comfort. Falling asleep had been its easiest since the outbreak started.

When Raverad awoke, the first thing he did was find Joshua. He was seen leaning against the Whitehaven sign. The Apostle limped towards him with the soft crunch of snow beneath his feet. Joshua made eye contact almost immediately.
“Ah, just the man I wanted to see!” he said. He definitely changed since he disappeared. “Sorry about your leg.”
“That’s fine, I won’t turn,” Raverad said. “Hey, I just wanted to ask what happened after you let Grimdale?” He noticed Joshua’s smile face. “I mean, if you don’t mind talking about….”“No, it’s fine.” Joshua replied. “I guess I do owe some explanation. I went back to the castle, you know, to see Jenni’s body. Well, as you could imagine, I sort of wanted to kill myself there, to die right beside her, to punish myself for my failures and sins. But when I went over there and I dug up the grave, she was not there.”
“Her body was taken?”
“Yes. Probably by those damned Uprising bastards who killed her! And I’m sure I was right because just then, I saw one of them.” His expression became sharp with anger as his hands gestured a reenactment of what happened. “I chased after him so hard down the hill, only to find myself surrounded by his trap. That was when they captured me. I don’t remember what they did to me between then and when you found me, but I do remember something important. There were two other prisoners there. One of them was Jackson.”
“He lives?”
“Yes! He and this other prisoner named Melody planned and escape with me. They managed to get out, but I was a bit slow. Then, the set up that trap and used me.” He put a hand on the Apostle’s shoulder. “Listen, I thought about what you said. There’s nothing I can do to bring back Jenni now, or her friends, or my family, or those innocents I have killed, but all of their deaths are the fault of Uprising. I know that now, and I want to join the fight so they may pay.”“Good,” Raverad said. “I’m glad you’re back, Joshua, and I swear to you, you will have your vengeance.”
“Thank you. Lead on, Apostle.”

After the conversation, the group traveled to Paluster. It was a small town made of catwalks and build on a giant, frozen lake. It circled around a single tree, which probably grew on a small island now covered with ice. Surrounding the place were several tall water fountains. They seemed to burst out on their own, as though some heat geiser caused these to happen. Nevertheless, the important reason why the group was here was for food and supplies.
As the group desperately searched every building, Raverad ran into Guerro. It wasn’t long before they began having a conversation.
“So what’s your story?” the Apostle finally asked after some small talk. Guerro did not seem like one-on-one talk kind of person as much as he was social with groups of people. “We haven’t talked much, so I was just wondering.”
“Well, as you know, I’m good with music and explosives,” he said. “What’s more to say?”
“How about, how you obtained those skills.”
“Does my pre-outbreak life really matter now?”
“Any type of bonding develops trust. Since we will be working together, I was hoping you would share some things about yourself.”
“Alright then.” He took a few seconds to gather his thoughts. “Well, to start with how I am a good musician, I was a bard once. I once traveled the lands as a teenager to play for the inns at different towns in the Grimdale Government. When the Great War came along, I played for the soldiers. As for my skill with explosives, I learned from the best: an expert in the military.”
“And how did you become a bandit?” Raverad asked.
“Well, there are a number of reasons for that,” he stroked his beard. “Firstly, the war itself. It was the Siege of Romero, which I was trapped in during the final weeks of the war, that haunts me to this day. I lost material to sing and play music about, so I could no longer be a bard. It wasn’t until after the outbreak when something deep inside me told me to pick up my guitar and play again for the crowd. Anyways, the next reason was what I did after the war. You probably know how a lot of people got drunk celebrating the end of it. I was one of them. It was no stranger, and neither was doing something I would regret when drunk. I even have slept with some women I know I shouldn’t, but we always had a good laugh in the end. This time though, it was different. Instead of a bed, I woke up in a dark alley on the cold gravel. Next to me was a woman, bloodied and badly beaten. It did not take long for me to realise that I was the one who did that. I made a run for it and exiled myself. Ever since then, I became a bandit, affected by the war and killing to keep the memories from my head.
“I was the only one in the group to become a bandit before the outbreak. I was the one who influenced Cory to become a bandit. Even then, he emphasized that we all were worth living, no matter what we have done. It was a man like him who helped me pick up my guitar again. Yes, I held on to it the whole time I did not play.”
“So, how do you look back on those terrible memories now?” Raverad asked.
Guerro looked up to the ceiling. “Ever since playing music again, I cleared my conscious. Sure, I remember those things, but I move on from the past, in a way that doesn’t involve killing anymore. Well, for the most part.”
The two of them walked out the door of the hut as they continued to talk.
“What about the others in your group?” Raverad continued asking questions. “For instance, Cory. What does he mean that being a bandit was the only way to go?”
“You probably have not experienced how he and the others did in this world,” Guerro said. “Cory told me about how almost everyone he came across was a bandit either trying to kill him immediately or lure him into friendship only to try and backstab him. I was one of the former. We both lost our weapons as we wrestled in the snow. Eventually, I lost our little fight. I couldn’t handle his brute strength. When I was a bandit before the outbreak, I only targeted the defenseless. For the first time ever, I begged for mercy. Even with the cold glare of hatred in his eyes, he spared my life. Then I started laughing. Then he did. Eventually, we just traveled together.
“As for the others, well, Brenda knew Cory before, and when they reunited, she joined our bandit group. Killing changed her as much as it changed us. Peter and a few others were with Brenda’s original group. Most of them got used to us, but the others refused to accept our ways. We had to kill them so they would not be trouble for us later. As you can guess, our group, under Cory’s ideals, was based around doing what was needed to survive this world.”
“And what about George?” the Apostle asked. “With Brenda around, he just seems like a pervert, but he must have been somebody else before that.”
Guerro nodded. “You think much like Cory. I like that. Well, I guess he was a different guy before, but I’m not sure you could call him a somebody. From what we heard, George was a beggar, drug-addict, drunk, and brawler. All of this escalated after the outbreak. When we first met him, it was at our camp at the Shire after fleeing from Al Hasa. He came out of nowhere, high on adrenaline rushers and drunk on Elliom ale. Our initial thoughts were to kill him. Cory however, saw no threat with George, rather an empty mind that could be mended, because he was a man with vision. To our surprise, Cory got him off of the rushers and ale for the most part, and turned him into a weapon. But, as you noticed, George is madly in love with Brenda.”
“I’d call that lust more than love,” Raverad said.
“Trust me, you do not know George at all when Brenda is not around. Somehow, Cory transformed this useless beggar into a loyal fighter. On all accounts, though, he is entirely expendable, along with a few others in our group.”
“And what about Jenna’s story?”
“Nothing here!” Earn interrupted their conversation. “Just like Whitehaven, this place is as dry as a desert.”
“Then we should move to Frostbane before nightfall,” Raveard said. “Tell everyone to meet by the tree.”
When the group gathered, they tried to split as little food they had left as possible with each other. Raverad ate half a loaf of bread while Earn ate the other half. Ezra and Jenna shared an apple. Same between Cory and Guerro. George and Joshua shared some mushroom soup. Brenda decided not to eat. A few mushrooms were available to make more mushroom soup, but that was going to be saved for later when times were truly desperate.
After consuming their rations, the group wandered off the ice and began their trek back through the soft, crunchy snow forests. Wind began to pick up and howl. It sounded more haunting and uninviting than the more peaceful serenity that it was yesterday. Snow picked up and swarmed around them like the undead. Ice bit harder into any exposed areas of skin. The metal of their armour pieces became increasingly more uncomfortable.
“Oh, glory and praise to Agni almighty!” Raverad cried out.
In the distance, two towering titans loomed over the forest. One was in the form of a female, weiding flames that have been unnaturally frozen as she had. The other was a male, who drove his massive blade into the earth some distance away. There, right before the whole group, were the frozen bodies of the god and goddess Agni.
Raverad overcame all restraints of fatigue, hunger, exposure, and the cold to run towards the great statues. As he approached them, he was ever more awed by the sight. Sure, he knew that these statues were here and he knew the legend of how they got there, but to see them with his own eyes was an entirely different experience than the artwork of even the most talented of fingers.
His eyes were drawn by an orange light out of the corner of his right eye. Turning in that direction, he saw a flare that joined whatever surviving illumination remained in the dusk. Surrounding the blade of Agni, surrounding the earth it penetrated, was fire.
“Fire, warmth!” he called to the group. “Blessed Agni has granted us a reprieve of this icy hell! Oh, thank Agni!”
He had not spoken like since he was a teenage preacher. It felt really good to finally feel connected once more with his patron deities.
The others rushed over to join him. They all surrounded the fire, savoring the head with outstretched hands. The tiny thorns of ice on their metal armour melted away, replaced by an invisible blanket of warmth. As the sun set, the moon rose, and the stars twinkled, the group merrily enjoyed this moment of deliverance from none other than Agni himself.
It was after a minute of this excitement and joy when they heard a choppy voice.
“Hello, anyone out there?”