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First whistling, then a hollowing thump was heard as an arrow soared and struck the front of an undead skeleton's cranium. A puff of white dust littered the air where its head once was while the skull was sent flying, attached to the arrowhead. The arrow ended its flight, pinned to a tree with the skull's jaw still biting the air. It was enough to disrupt the remaining body's gait, but the figure of bones continued toward its attacker, unphased. 

Coming closer into view, its offender could tell it was holding a mace. Its pace started to quicken as it reared up an arm to strike. Two arrows shot through its rib cage, missing their target. The undead skeleton swung its club downwards for a killing blow.

Corvus dropped his bow to the ground to quickly grab his shield and block the blow. Pushing his guard upwards created an opening in the undead's defense. He promptly unsheathed and slashed his sword upwards in one slick action, exploding the figure of bones to pieces. Corvus had cut through its ribcage, sending the other bones flying.

"Shit. I've never seen 'em this close to the village before," he muttered while squatting down to examine the dropped mace. "What do you make of this?" he asked his companion.

Reisha just now caught up to his pace. He had worked his way forward while she stopped along the trail to replenish her fill of berries. Some of the berries had blackened from the Dark Surge, a description given to an inexplicable disease-like poisoning that came forth from the bog. No one knows why it started or how it spread, but it brought forth skeletons and mummified zombies from ancient burial grounds. It poisoned animals and plants, killing them.

"This isn't good. We need to tell the-" Reisha yelped as she got hit with an arrow in the shoulder.

Another undead skeleton and a mummified corpse stood on either side of them. They were not like the previous enemy. Their eyes had blackened flames that burned outward from them. Although the skeleton did not have eyes, the core of the black flames still began within its sockets. The small fires kissed their temples as they looked toward their targets.

The skeleton had the bow and reared back the bowstring, locking in another projectile. Corvus dove toward Reisha, knocking her to the ground. She yelled in pain. Their horse, which had been led in behind Reisha, reared in excitement and galloped down the path. The new arrow soared a foot over their heads. Corvus didn't hesitate to grab the arrow sticking out of his companion's shoulder and yank it out. Blood gushed out onto the dirt path. Reisha's screaming worsened.

Another arrow darted towards them, but it stuck in Corvus' shield. In response, he threw his sword sideways, which sliced through the skeleton's body, ejecting its bones. The corpse had made its way almost directly on top of them during the commotion. Corvus had just enough time to slide his shield in front of the atrocity before he was bit. 

Getting bit by something blackened meant that you, too, would be poisoned. However, the poison doesn't affect the living like it does the dead. For some inexplicable reason, the living only die and stay dead. Corvus and Reisha were in a group known as the Seekers, who were risking their lives to find answers. They believed that something or someone may be causing this. Relics on their world were known to stir up trouble, but nothing to this extent.

Corvus was a big, burly man, and it was good that he was because he flung the undead corpse off of him with so much force its spine broke on a tree post. Corvus made his way to the corpse, flipped it over with one foot, and curb-stomped it with the other, using an overgrown root of the tree as support. Reisha got up in the background, legs trembling from pain.

Her ally ran to her and helped stand her up. They both spotted their horse in the distance. Reisha whistled weakly, and it came running back. At the same time, out of their peripherals, they saw a figure start to form beside them. No, Corvus thought as a cloud of black haze lifted the bones of the last fallen skeleton and pieced it back together. At the same time, the corpse he had just mutilated picked itself off the ground, and the same haze slowly reconfigured its face.

The horse made it to them just before the process was complete. Corvus helped Reisha on the steed and quickly ran to pick up his sword. He slashed the forming skeleton once again for good measure and sent bones flying toward the backend of their mount. The undead corpse started running towards them.

The horse took off, but Corvus saw it coming and had already started running after the steed. Before the horse took its first gallops, somehow, he managed to grab its reigns and swoop onto its backend. Corvus squeezed Reisha in with his thighs, and he whipped the reins hard, vocalizing a "yah."

He tore a piece of cloth from his pocket and rolled it in a ball. He stuffed it in Reisha's small gaping shoulder hole without warning. She let out a weakened yell. She was starting to pass out, and Corvus had to hold her up with his body. The arrow she'd been shot with was tipped with blackened poison.

They had less than an hour to follow the long, winding path and return to the village. The sun was already setting and they heard calls of the undead in the distance. They needed to visit the priest for healing. That, and a miracle, was the only way to heal some people affected by the poison. For others, it was a lost cause. Corvus had two missions: save Reisha and warn the village that the undead are now wielding the blackened's power.

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 It started to snow. Reisha was not faring well. She had regained consciousness to throw up over the horse's side at least a handful of times. After mumbling nonsense to herself, she'd drift back off. It seemed she grew heavier as time went on. With every jolt from the horse's gallop, her body wanted to fall forward.

"Open the gates! It's Corvus!"

After being unchained, the tall, steel gate doors swung outwards. Corvus wasted no time, pushing his heels into the horses' thighs and making a clucking sound. He steered his steed over to the town temple. The temple doors were barred shut, but a fire showed through a window of a cabin behind it.

"Doctor Sangoda, please! It's urgent." Corvus was pounding on the loosely held slate door with his companion slung over a shoulder.

Dr. Sangoda, the priest and witch doctor of the village, rushed to the door. He recognized the voice and thought the matter had to be important coming from a Seeker. The doctor quickly wrapped his dreads in a twirl above his head and answered the door.

"Corvus. What-" The doctor stopped when he saw Reisha's slumped body over the Seeker's shoulder. "Get her in here quick."

Sangoda slid an arm across his dining table to make a clearing. A few clay plates shattered on the floor, but they paid it no mind. A candle sitting on a window sill right above the table stayed lit but fluttered from the movement. They laid Reisha on her back, and she responded by violently coughing.

The witch doctor left momentarily and returned with many ritualistic tools in a small wooden chest. One object was a pure white blade with a golden hilt. Its pommel had a built-in locket that contained a clear crystal-like object inside. He also took a small ritual book out of the chest.

The doctor began chanting, swirling the tip of the blade in the air. Corvus, understanding that he needed to stay out of the way, pulled up a seat in a far corner of the cabin. The blackened was disturbed in Reisha. Black haze made its way slightly out of her wound and hovered above it in the air.

Then, suddenly, Sangoda thrust the blade into his patient, making her convulse. He didn't hit any vital organs but pierced shallowly inside her pectoral muscle. Corvus audibly tried to stop the action and got out of his seat to intervene, but he stopped halfway. The doctor flipped up the locket pommel with his thumb, and after the white blade turned black, the crystal in the pommel absorbed the black haze.

He had sucked the blackened poison out of her using the dagger. Then, he threw the dagger across the room sideways into a burning fire in the fireplace. Disembodied distant screaming and voices were heard until they faded out. At the same time, the blade turned red until it exploded, and the black haze burned into green gas.

Reisha gasped for air and lifted her head from the table. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her veins were budging from her neck. The wounds she had suffered would've been bearable if she hadn't been blackened. Now, she was wide awake.

"Holy shit. What the fuck just happened?" She asked.

"You were seconds away from dying, and you would've if Corvus hadn't brought you here," the doctor observed.

"There's more to the story," she said, still catching her breath. "The undead wield blackened power." There was a brief pause.

"Then it's as I feared," the priest said with a look of dread. "There's only one explanation for how this disease doesn't turn the living and only affects the dead in a local area. And only one thing can grow in strength over time as it lives through the once mortal. It's bringing over more power from the other side, and it's expanding its radius of effect. Its-"

"I'm not following," Corvus impatiently cut off the doctor.

"It's a Vampire Lord. The Dark Surge we saw that lasted days was his portal of entry in the bog. He's either on the move, which is why the undead are coming closer, or his power is growing – or both. I would guess the former, considering the undead now wield supernatural powers," Dr. Sangoda explained.

"Soon, he will be looking for living mortals to quench his bloodthirst," he continued. "Vampires grow stronger only when they've succeeded in a soul-bound feast. It looks like that may've occurred. Maybe more than once. Consider yourself lucky that you've only run into undead so far."

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───