Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"What is your name?" asked a corpse with half of his face festering with undead maggots whilst the other side was completely dried up and instead housed an undead millipede that crawled into the eye, mouth and ear as it pleased.

No response came for this simple question, the knight, now deprived of his armour and only garbed in a piece of fabric furnished by his captors was tied up inside of one of the many tents, his wrists bound behind his back by some awfully resilient rope and fastened to a wooden pillar, even his incredible might couldn't do anything to them, and trying to wear them was useless as the ones holding him there were too careful and checked everything thoroughly with unrelenting intensity.

Forced to stay standing, he simply looked around the inside of the tent, it was rather empty, probably owning it to the fact that he was being held there, despite already being unable to move at all, they wouldn't even take the risk of allowing him to get his hands on even the smallest of things.

"Alright then, what is the 'Watchful Undeviginti'?" asked the undead instead, the millipede emerging from his hollow sockets and snapping its mandibles at the face of the captive, a most foul toxin dripping along their surface, but once again, the knight refused to answer.

The undead made a weird sound and shook his head, switching from the pale tongue the living could understand thanks to the repugnant corpse being equipped with a trinket carrying the gift of comprehension, to the death tongue which a living couldn't understand even with the blessing active.

Two more undeads, garbed in white entered the tent, their faces covered mostly by wide hoods, though one of them, who was also carrying a gladstone bag, had their skull picking out, revealing a sort of beak that slightly curved downward toward its very end.

"You're in luck, living, our group's torturers are also medics" spoke the two-faced corpse before stepping to the side, keeping one end on the short, curved sword hanging around his hips.

The knight was fairly certain that there was at least one other undead that was standing behind him, out of his vision at all times, but he had never seen or heard anything to confirm that suspicion of his, but considering that the creatures he was captured by didn't seem to care about sleeping, eating or drinking, in fact, they didn't seem to care about any of the basics of being a thing that existed in nature.

'Watchful Undeviginti would never take such foul creatures as warriors… Are they minions of Sanguine Undeviginti? But they should be like us, they could not exist outside of their allotted time, right?' the knight thought deeply, uncertain of what or where these moving corpses had come from.

In any case, they didn't seem to know much, and if that was so, he wasn't intending on being the one to fill them in.

'Though… That one could control the sand without an armament decorated with images of Watchful Undeviginti…' he watched as the beaked-corpse and the other, unknown one kneeled on the ground, opened the suitcase, laid out a pristine piece of fabric down and began taking out a variety of instruments and tools, some which purpose seemed clear, whilst other which was either a real head-scratcher, or much too worrying to think deeply about.

After a minute or so, the two seemed to have gotten everything ready, and the bird-like one, whomst the knight supposed to be the leader of sort or senior amongst the two, stepped forward, holding some sort of red object that fitted comfortably in his hand, pushing it against the knight's skin, which had been battered by the harsh suns since childhood, caused no pain, instead just drawing bright red upon his flesh.

"Let me explain…" said the white-garbed undead, his beak uncomfortably close to the living's eyes.

"...We will first start with the chest area, the deltoid, trapezius, pectoralis major, pectoralis minor… All muscles in that area shall be uncovered without being damaged, which naturally implies the peeling away of your epidermis, dermis and alike… Which you might better know as your skin" the undead said, although all of those the knight had heard sounded a bit off in some ways, this guy definitely sounded way too casual, like it was typical procedure for him.

"Fret not, the agony will be extreme and without limit, but you shall not die… If you are still unwilling to answer questions, then I supposed we could try extracting one of your kidneys… Do you know what a kidney is? I can't summarise it as it does many different things, actually, which is why it often goes bad, at least in lesser livings- You can live a normal life with only one, so we can remove completely and not heal you back up…"

The other undead in white said something in death tongue.

"My assistant just had a fantastic idea, if you really refuse to speak, then we'll remove your lower jaw-"

"I'll only speak to your leader, the woman with the twin scimitars" the knight finally spoke up.

"Huh… But I didn't do anything yet"

The bird-headed undead shrugged.

"So afraid of a little pain… But I fear that my lord isn't obliged to appear before you, so do consider accepting to converse with our lovely fellow over there if it doesn't work out" the supposed medic and his assistant packed their stuff and left for now, and so did the two-faced undead, leaving the knight alone, seemingly…

The living was still certain that the space behind him was occupied, he tried to crank his neck to look but the pillar he was tightly bound to was in the way, and he could only see a minuscule portion in each direction.

The knight waited, for a while, and eventually, the small lantern they had had the odd kindness of granting him began to slowly dim, the inside of the tent turning darker and darker.

Though he knew that outside, the desert was still covered in pure white sand and illuminated by a pale blue glow, Watchful Undeviginti still gazing down upon the world, he knew for he himself was still here.

'I just need to buy myself some time…' he thought, not at all intending on saying anything noteworthy or actually important if the dual-wielding undead appeared, he was somewhat hoping that she wouldn't show up, as he doubted that he could get away with being silent with her, and even more-so doubted that he could spout nonsense.

He hadn't even tried the second option with those he deemed as goons, he just felt that something was wrong with them all, that it was best to refuse interaction as much as possible.

'Right… I just need to buy time and hold on…' he thought, not noticing the figure that walked up to his side.