Chapter 0

Prologue

On the desk, across from the necromancer, sat an ancient tome. A peeling red cover wrapped around a handful of hastily scrawled-upon yellow pages. Much of the cover couldn’t be read. Sharth'ax knew the name on the cover was Morrrigan Improse. But what was far more important, and alarming, to him, were the contents.

The book itself was a collection of short stories. The writing itself became darker and more brooding as the pages turned. Many thought these pieces were the ravings of madmen who had become obsessed with their own dreams. Now, the dusty text was giving a man who thought himself untouchable fresh worries, new nightmares. The rambling text on the last page had become an obsession for this particular master of undeath.

*If you ever hear its song, it’s already too late. A creature of shadow and mist has come, and its hunger seeks a new morsel.

At first, not a sound would be heard in the night, then come the screams. As though carried on distant winds, the sounds of pain would blow like a trumpet, heralding doom itself.

A gargantuan hole, larger than any star or astral anomaly, would soon come into view. As this creature of the night floated above a new smorgasbord, its drool would sloth off its giant opening. The ichor coating the land in a burning mess of acidified and rotten flesh.

But unlike that of a human mouth, this portal only had one purpose. This mouth would never speak a word. This was a mouth for tearing, a mouth for chewing. And as the floating form blocked out the soft glow of the moon, the veritable nightmare would begin.

This gaping maw of shadow and rot would only ever play host to the screams and sorrow of the dying. The strongest mind would be ruined by the din rising from this portal of suffering. But it wasn’t just the noises, the sight of this unimaginable horror was the next course in its feast of terrors.

The mouth wasn’t something human. An unending sea of rotten black teeth—numbering in the thousands—would be the first thing to invade the consciousness of those doomed to experience this unholy creation. The ocean of flesh surrounding this portal to hell would give the appearance of a black night sky. They would see no moon in this inhumane visage, only stars of black and white bones, stained red—its flesh pockmarked by the burning suns of dozens of deep purple eyes, lazily searching for the beast’s next meal.

The last thing these doomed souls would ever see was a field of sores and rot, as this detestable mouth bit down again and again.

Cities and villages alike would be swept up in the bloody river of its gluttonous feeding. Yet it would find no satiation for its hunger.*

That depraved writing was all Sharth’ax could think about since he read it weeks ago. He’d turned it over in his head every night. On countless trips to libraries across Duneria, he’d found nary a mention of any such beast or deity. The world was happy to ignore the warning. He couldn’t place the source of the obsession, it wasn’t fear, or at least that’s what he’d convinced himself to say.

Leaving the book behind and exiting his personal chambers, the human strode his way through the Noble Quarter of the Tombs, his personal dungeon. As Sharth’ax pushed open the heavy wooden doors of the primary meeting room, the assembled lords of his following turned to meet his gaze. Seated around a large table were his closest allies and confidants, the various leaders of his personal army.

The man hurriedly moved to the head of the dark-stained table at the center of the chamber. The enormous table was covered in books and scrolls, as it often was during such gatherings. A soft green light emanated from hearths at opposite ends of the room. Seating himself in the padded chair, the leader signaled for the meeting to begin.

Waiting for the various Demi-humans and undead to settle, Sharth’ax began speaking.

“So, we all know why we’re here,” said the Necromancer. “The reports I’ve seen suggest that we have a few major issues, primarily to do with security.”

“The guilds have become extremely active to the south,” spoke a bulky anthropomorphic tiger. “Both the Republic and the dwarven Kingdom to the east have been pushing in on our swamps.” The tigerman reached for a parchment sitting before him, he perused for a bit before continuing. “We’ve counted twenty-four incursions in the last month alone.”

“Adventurers will always attack us. Such is the way of things,” responded the dark-haired human Necromancer. “We will have to find a way to deal with them, but it seems we have other issues we must address.”

“We can’t just up and attack them. They would inevitably send greater raiding parties,” said an exasperated skeleton sitting across from the humanoid tiger. The skeleton’s facial jewelry rattled as they hung their skull, then slammed it into the tabletop. As they did so, a slight flare of magic activated around them. Their arcane shield had absorbed the blow into the tabletop. The spellcaster sighed, before lifting their head back and leaning back into their chair.

“If we go after the Republic directly, they’ll surely send a larger force against us.” The skeleton Summoner continued, “Of much greater concern are these Shard Carriers. They may be few now, but our spies report more showing up with each new day.”

Sharth’ax stood and turned away from the table. Deliberately pacing behind his gilded throne, the Necromancer stroked his bearded chin and stared at the floor. The embroidered red suit he wore glowed in the magical light of the room.

In contrast to the bickering of the other lords, one demon sat at the opposite end of the table, looking genuinely bored.

Ostrath, the Prime Demon Lord loyal to Sharth’ax, twirled a small glass orb back and forth in his off-hand. His beady, black eyes focused on the small purple orb as it rolled around in his hand. This purple-skinned demon cast curious glances at the surrounding underlings, then looked at his overlord. The reports about the Shard Carriers looked to be causing significant concern to the man. The demon couldn’t help but notice the Necromancer was gathering Mana from his surroundings. This was something he did more and more these days, likely storing it away for later.

“These Shard Carriers are our biggest concern,” said the demon leader. “We can’t allow them to become a bigger danger. They won’t stay weak for long.”

Sharth’ax caught the gaze of his second-in-command, and narrowed his amber eyes.

“To that end, what can we do immediately?” interjected the Necromancer. “We already have our crafters and summoners working around the clock.”

“We’ll have to summon more,” stated the Tigerman gruffly. “And we might want to place some impressive units on the edge of the swamps. We need more advanced forces there.”

“That will take extra time to prepare,” spoke the jewelry-laden skeleton, now paying more attention to the conversation. “We only have supplies for basic undead prepared on short notice,” sighing, they continued, "and we don't really have the material for a huge number either."

Fixing her glowing green eyes on the tigerman, “We need more advanced corpses if we are to create specialized servants.” Reaching for a scroll in front of her, the caster perused it before continuing, “We currently have the ability to expand the crafter legion a bit. Before we build up our forces, we must supply them.”

Narrowing his red eyes at the skeleton, a human-looking man with a long grey beard interjected, "Varren, you can’t be serious. We don’t need more swords and armor. We need more eyes in the world. In case you’ve forgotten, everyone from the Hunter’s Glade to those damned Spire smugglers has been hunting our servants."

“I’m well aware of your troubles Lazar, these bones are old, not blind,” spoke the bedazzled skeleton in a rattling sass. “How exactly do you expect to find these new ‘eyes’ Lazar?” prodded the skeleton, before continuing, “We have to secure our borders, then we can recruit more of your precious spies.”

These two were always competing like this. The jabs and japes between them at council meetings had become an expected incident.

The black-robed man leaned forward. “We must gain more intelligence about these Shard Carriers and their plans.” Looking around the council table, Lazar focused on each being in the group for a beat before continuing, “we don’t know enough about their abilities yet either, we have to capture some of them.”

“That will be all but impossible. We tried that already, remember?” challenged Sharth’ax, who had quietly turned his attention back toward the bickering lords. His amber eyes fixed on Lazar for a full second, who twisted his head away. Anyone who had been using Mana Sense at that moment would have seen the rush of Mana from Sharth’ax directed at the spymaster. Whatever had passed between them seemed to have quelled most of his resistance.

“Still. . .we must do something! The Glade has been using the Shard Carriers to frightening effect in hunting us!” stammered the now-sweating old man.

“We are, we’re going with Varren’s plans, which I assume she has already drafted?” The questioning glance at the skeleton was answered with a snap of her boney fingers.

“I did indeed,” responded the regal mage, as an undead scribe appeared at the edge of the council chamber. The nondescript undead was carrying a bundle of scrolls. The wraith sauntered to each lord at the council table and placed a scroll in front of both of them. With scowls and rolled eyes, each lord unrolled the presented parchment.

The scrolls detailed a list of planned summons, expansions of magical item crafting, and more.

“Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”