Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Ir'Houwl's senses were not deceiving her the still sun was doing something entirely new, and that something new was rather bizarre- It was going dim, dimmer and dimmer with every second until it turned pale blue, in a matter of seconds, a sort of night had fallen upon the desert, though it was still incredibly bright, the temperature quickly fell to freezing, the usually yellowish sand seemed to shift to a pure white as well.

And worryingly, once its initial transformation was over, the unmoving sun seemed to tremble, some sort of dark line seemed to appear upon its surface, a vertical slit that expanded, only to reveal an enormous eye coloured the same pale blue with a black sclera.

A strident sound washed over the desert, like the cries of a few thousands banshees, and the sun began looking around, producing a most abhorrent sound, wet like sound as it did so, the eye seemed free to travel all across the body of the sun and spun all over its surface as though looking for something, but in the end, its gaze settled over the camp of the undead, squinting as though something most foul had just entered its vision.

Eye full of vitriol as it settled on Ir'Houwl precisely, but that apparent hatred seemed to fade away in an instead as the eye instead slid over to what could be considered the bottom of the sun from where the undead stood, and five comets of pale blue began falling down from the sky, each landing a great distance from one another, the instant these moving lights appeared in the sky, the desert seemed to rumble to life as the sensations of thousands of feet and bodies moving at once was felt.

Only one of these comets landed anywhere near the camp of the dead, which must have been on purpose as the eye was quick to reposition itself and focus on them again, as though curious as to what would happen next, Ir'Houwl emerged from the sand, and the sand sculpture that the now pale blue sun had been staring at fell to pieces, it would seem that the still sun, in its current, horrifying form, could not directly harm anything, the eye was only serving its primary purpose, which was to watch.

The comets didn't seem to be a direct method of attack either, otherwise this one would have been fired directly into the camp, the minor lord and a band of her soldiers stepped out of the camp, their attention directed toward a small crater that was emitting some sort of vapour, a pale blue vapour that seemed to shine just like the sun itself, only that it was rapidly growing weaker.

"Assume formation, there is a living in there" she said, her soldiers, who didn't look the part due to not two of them wearing the exact same get-up, in fact, they didn't feel much like a unified force due the varying choices in weaponry and equipment, but naturally, Ir'Houwl wouldn't have assembled her warriors randomly, that little bit of apparent discord and chaos was by design.

To her sides, two of her elites, one carrying a stone longsword and the other clutching a weathered wand.

Both were wearing masks reminiscent of her own, which hadn't been part of the equipment she had granted them, they had just decided to put on some to look like her.

From the crater, a figure stood up, so suddenly that it was like they had been awoken with a jolt, this figure definitely possessed life force, unlike the sun that had seemingly birthed it, indeed, the watchful star, despite having an eye and acting very lively at the moment, wasn't a being animated by life force, meaning that it was probably instead fuelled by an energy of some kind.

Though Ir'Houwl would be tempted to put it on the same sort of wavelength as a pure spirit, she knew well that some suns simply seemed to have a mind of their own, such as the sun of eternal darkness King Nitok had encountered during his time in Oblivion.

Perhaps that one was a similar being, neither of the living, of the dead, a pure spirit or sapient golem- Instead whatever suns with agency could be called.

Emerging from the crater as all pale blue vapours faded away, the creature called or summoned by the sun was weird in the sense that it looked just like a knight, one would expect something alien, something bizarre like the dreaded creatures that called the Abyss their home or at least a creature that was somewhat themed after what had thrown it down from the skies.

But at glance, it merely looked like a crusader, heavy armour, a great helm, a most plain white surcoat that matched the current colouration of the sand, though, it wielded a rather large hammer, it was clearly meant to be wielded with both hands, the head of this hammer looked oversized however, larger than even the knight's bucket-helm.

It was decorated on one side with a depiction of what Ir'Houwl guessed to be the desert with the still sun hovering above whilst flanked by two other suns, on the other side, it instead depicted the sun alone and with its eye wide open, there wasn't even the desert showed on this one, only the pale blue sun staring straight ahead.

The knight and Ir'Houwl stared right at one another, her empty sockets behind her mask meeting with his shining blue eyes concealed beneath the helm, the sclera seemed black like those of the sun.

After looking at one another for nearly ten whole seconds, the knight put his hammer down upon the sand and turned toward the sun, as though asking a question of some sort.

Only a moment passed and the knight turned again, this time readying his hammer for combat.

A voice spoke out :

"I am servant of Watchful Undeviginti, you are not yet welcomed here, prepare to die"

The knight sounded strangely clear and rational in his speech, and Ir'Houwl understood everything as the medallion carrying the blessing of comprehension on her person did its work and translated the unknown language neatly.

The minor lord stepped forward, both hands grasping the scimitar opposite to them and slowly unsheathing them, revealing their blades of dark stone covered in runes.

"Very poor choice of words"

The knight did not seem to understand what she meant by that and merely began approaching, seemingly unafraid that he was outnumbered and basically in enemy territory.

In the very instant that it was possible, both accelerated, causing the sand around to jump up, the hammer was swung horizontally, whilst the undead swiftly stepped back out of its reach before dashing forth again.

Both of her blades clashing with the hammer's handle, which had been forged out of some unknown steel.

The knight pushed against the scimitars and then stepped back, his fingers tapping upon the steel of his weapon as both combatants readied themselves again.