Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Aherm… Sooo… How are we going to go about this?" Jaral Cribler was the first to actually speak, his heterochromatic eyes brought about from unnatural means looking at each of his contemporaries, of course, the four greater warlords had had to come together and assemble around a round table, which still had cobwebs upon it after being hastily rolled out of wherever it had been, the very different lords had just been throwing glares at one another for the past ten minutes or so.

Well, perhaps it wasn't only consisting of glares, Alisart Cleavster shifted uncomfortably.

"Will you stop staring into my soul woman and licking your teeth woman?! You god awful creep-"

"Ooh… Little knight, are you legs shaking underneath this table~?" Derdlim Maulerd was easily the largest of the four regional lords, her cannibalistic tendencies and other appreciation of the fine flesh of creatures had clearly brought significant result, hands and forearms were covered in cuts, she would be dressed rather lightly if not for the bloodstained butcher's apron, which she was always wearing for some reason, carrying it alongside her oversized cleaver at all times, because it was always time to butcher and feast.

Just like all lords here, she had also brought her right hand along, each of the warlords were always accompanied by their most trusted, and most powerful warrior.

Standing behind her like a statue, as if completely lost in thought, the great feaster, Gartran, who had most definitely overindulged in the meat of trolls of the peaks, without a speck of hair and with patches of their grey skin growing over his immense frame, a talented devourer that Derdlim paraded around like a rabid dog.

"As if! They are merely shaking out of disgust, you reek of goblin dung, I wouldn't even want to know what you did to achieve that" the lord of the Southern Shores scoffed, ignoring the growling coming from behind her.

"My lord, do not forget the purpose of this meeting…" reminded Aramap, the only difference between this interaction and the usual ones was that the others typically happened from much further away, the lords shouting at one another like mad old folks with hearing problems.

His first knight was right, that was not the purpose of this extraordinary assembly.@@novelbin@@

"It should be obvious, let us rain an inferno upon them, weave in hell upon this plane" Irlke Combuscrus hit the table with his fist, the swamp pyromancer's hands were covered in burns, his head entirely wrapped in bandages, a badge of honour amongst those who practised this fiery art, being scorched by one's own flame was a sign that they had reached greater powers, cultivated a fire that was powerful, harder to manipulate and even after the user's life.

The warking's intensity could be seen in his eyes at all time, easy to see in between the bandages, glowing a menacing red.

Behind him, his right hand nodded alongside him, her face also bearing the marks of burns but not quite as severe to warrant hiding it, the infernal pyromancer, Hylop's eyes also glowed red, only a bit dimmer than that of her lord, not always perceptible as strands of black hair were often in the way.

"Raah… You and your flames! Did you not listen to that dragon? Or do you think you can burn the dead until they die?"

"Cremation is very much a proper way to deal with corpses, no?"

The southern and northern lord looked at one another in complete silence, Alisart eventually shrugging.

"Aight, I can't find fault with that logic, but you don't have enough pyromancers to cover all possible fronts, right? Even if they just attack only my territory, the shore is rather wide…" he conceded, scratching the side of his face.

"Right, that dragon did mention their unending numbers, they will probably just completely surround the continent if they are as numerous as we were led to believe, logistically… There is no way we can do anything about it" the bandaged king tapped his finger upon the wood, a bit of smoke rising as he did so.

"Yes, but that is without counting the assistance that this Solast promised us, he spoke of a method to keep the dead from invading and just stomping on us all" Jaral spoke again, his right hand unfurling a rough, but comprehensive map on the table.

"Hah, didn't know you had this sort of thing, Cribler…"

"Speak for yourself Combuscrus, everybody knows that you hoard all the books, parchments and whatnot from the old empire"

"Come now, the majority, not all" all four of the lords stood up and looked over at the map, an artefact from the time that came before the regional wars, when the continent was united and thriving.

"Alintair, explain if you will" ordering his most precise markswoman, his keen-eyed archer, she stepped forward, explaining a few details concerning the map, as the continent had seen a few changes since then, and was thus, not quite as accurate concerning the extremities.

She was garbed in ample clothing, tightened by ropes around the ankles and arms, the latter mean to prevent the string of her bow from getting got when she released arrows, whatever expression she might have hidden behind a wooden mask, no one here had ever seen her before, a testament to the talent exerted as an ambush sharpshooter.

Your adventure continues at My Virtual Library Empire

Speaking amidst themselves for multiple minutes, Derdlim emitted another idea.

"I know that living beings have life force, I have tasted it many times, very nourishing part…"

"You eat people alive?"

"...No silly! What a bother it would be to keep them alive as we cook the meat! We have ways to keep the good stuff in, and eating life force is very good for the body, some of you should try it- But I meant to say, if we have life force, then what do the dead have? Death force? Those things probably shouldn't interact" she pushed both fists together.

"Sensical" muttered Gartran behind her.

"Well yes, I do believe that I have heard of such forces serving to operate anything that exists, for all we know, they might just cancel one another, I'll make a deep dive on the subject" Irlke Combuscrus got an idea, but did not share it yet for he didn't know whether it was truly achievable.

"Moving past that, how would we even harvest this life force to use? Would that be the assistance the dragon promised? Some sort of tool or weapon capable of obliterating the dead?" Alisart leaned back in his seat.

"Huh… That dragon was a bit vague about it, we would be better off just assuming no dragons will help us and plan accordingly, if help does come, that will just be bonus, first of all, we need a way to ensure that they can't invade and seize control over the nearby sea, losing your fishing harvest would be rather problematic, and if they are as described, then letting them anywhere near our soils is sentencing us to starvation" Jaral Cribler spoke with his arms crossed, starting a whole new session of discussions.

The bloodthirsty warlords were going along surprisingly well, even though they each had different accents and spoke different mother tongues, the threat of imminent death was truly something of a miracle.