Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"Have you children never ridden on a boat?

Dealing with motion sickness isn't that difficult" Pierre-Ornée looked over at his three proteges, one sprawled on the ground in a star position, another flung over the edge of the ship, unloading everything that could be from his mouth, the fish and sea monsters must be having a real buffet down there, the last one was seemingly sitting and fine, but she was as pale as sheet, somewhere in between unconsciousness and wakefulness.

In truth, the halbardier had not ridden on ships many times at all, just once in his youth when he used to work for a very petty lord, who had somehow gotten beef with a whale, not a monster, just a whale, the animal and the lord somehow hated one another with a passion.

Anyways, Pierre-Ornée had been on that floating vessel to murder that whale, as a simple squire back then. Experience new stories on empire

"Ah, good old times" he turned the ship's wheel without any mercy to his three sick trainees, the defiler's were out of sight of most, but not of the copper knight, they could not distinguish him, but he could make out the details of their faces and robes, he might actually be able of reaching them from here, but that would cause too much movement, the ship had not been attacked yet because every single ship, even if not intended to travel upon the ocean, was built with functions to go unnoticed and not stir more water than needed.

The fear of the water ran deep, people only trusted unfamiliar bodies of water if they were perfectly clear, Pierre-Ornée was confident in his strength to even escape the maws of the dwellers in their own environment, but he was accompanied by three rookies, the bluest of beginners, they could probably get swept up by just the regular animals.

Also, this was supposed to teach them a few things, such as, murder.

Very important, and he made sure to remind them of it.

"Combat is an elaborate experience, although you most certainly have in mind magic spells thrown about and swings of sword that humble mountains, but for the most part, even at greater levels of strength, a fight is still just a fight, beating down, out-manoeuvering and wounding your opponents is the easy part, the hardest step to becoming a warrior, is to learn to kill all without hesitation, without remorse, do it in whatever way is best, even if it involves, inflicting horrific, but not instantly lethal injuries, once you have reached that step, it becomes the easiest part of all, you can just think of those you kill as mere XP if it helps, but that only works for strangers…" he casually spoke, simply speaking business.

Splitting skulls and chopping heads was but a mere part of his occupation, and for him, there was no such thing as thinking of them as food to nourish his strength.

The three unwanteds stared at him, having a hard time understanding the copper knight, with the thing he said, and the fact that they only recognised him as a voice inside an armour, they tended to forget that even if from another world, everyone on this ship was a human.

"Ah, land" Pierre-Ornée leaned forward "Just as I thought, they went for the island of ash"

The travel had not been long, the island, whose name had been lost to time, was not situated very far from the coasts of Viridis, only a few facts about it could be found across different cultures residing on the continent, this was a place that had seen three awakenings.

This was where The Defiler Of The Holy had emerged and fallen, hence the nickname, this place had been burnt in many areas by the heretic, no flames of his remained, but the air here was certainly invigorating to the defilers.

This was also where the Elven Light had earned the honours as a heroine, presumably in a confrontation against the former, although she had not been the one to bring him to his knees.

A third awakening had occurred here, at least, many claimed so, but there was no evidence of it, nor any sort of personage that this could be referring to, it was a mere rumour.

"Is- Is there something of importance to them here?" Toby managed to say, his stomach seriously strained by the constant ejection of all of its content.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Not that I am aware of, they probably don't know either, the defilers act either out of insanity, or sheer instinct, I would guess that a mix of the two led them to visit the grounds their lord of sort stepped upon"

The way to the island was without any confrontation with beasts of the depth, which was very much welcome, although the halbardier supposed that it was because even the creatures below were steering clear of the heretical fire, the trip back would most likely not be so peaceful.

The ship of the defilers was already docked, or rather, it was already rammed into the shores, not giving a single care about the integrity of their vessel.

"Are they not planning on leaving?" Ilona remarked.

"Maybe they just didn't know how to operate a ship all that well" continued William, looking around with curiosity.

The so-called island was clearly much too large to be called that, but considering the size of a single continent in this world, they might as well call this chunk of land whatever.

"Huh, they must be in a hurry, looks like they sprinted out of here" Toby noticed traces, broken branches and kicked up dirt, leading into an area that had turned completely grey and barren, the sheer proximity to these ashes made the eyes of the otherworlders itch.

"Let's hurry a little bit" Pierre-Ornée was growing a little bit concerned about what was getting the defilers so focused, usually, one would expect them to be rolling on the ashes and even trying to eat it, that would be the least weird thing for them to do, but they had all diligently ignored it all, not even one lagging behind.

The walk to them was not long however, beyond fields and mounds of ash, an enormous hole was to be found in the ground, having clearly been carved with great care, the chasm spanned over the width of an entire city, made with the expressed intent of allowing one to step down to the very bottom, where a flat portion had been left entirely untouched.

The congress of heresy was assembled there, arms high in the air as they listened to the manic words of what must be their leader.