Death Song

There's undead all around you, fear coursing through your body and all you can think of is escape. You see a few others following orders, but their shots do nothing. Apparently the Necromancer has protected himself behind a more powerful magic shield than the cleric you saw die had. Even Wessel's spell dissipates before it.

You ignore your orders, you ignore your fellow soldiers, you ignore the attack on Nuro, and you run and you're not a bit ashamed to put your survival first.

The chaos of the fighting is bewildering and you don't really pay attention to what direction you're heading, you're just making a beeline to any destination not completely filled with zombies, ghosts, and skeletons. You look back, only to see more death. The hooded figure on top of the battlements calls down some sort of death cloud that begins to envelop the area you were previously in. The screams of the distant victims are horrible.

You feel like you're living a nightmare as you constantly bump into corpses, both moving and unmoving. Defensive chops with your sword do nothing to kill the unnatural creatures and only temporarily push them out of your way. It is only by sheer luck that you get away without getting killed.

You run further, leaving the carnage behind. You look back again to see if anything is in pursuit, but nothing is to your relief. Still, you're not comfortable and you continue to distance yourself until you can run no further and you must stop to rest.

It is at this point, you wonder what you're going to do. You wonder if going back to report to the nearest Zalan commander would be wise. Will they punish you for running away? The situation was hopeless, surely they couldn't...could they? And even if they don't, then what? Send you back in? That's definitely not appealing given what you've seen.

At this point you're really regretting your decision to join the army. You wish you could just leave. You want to go home.

Going AWOL back in Retlad wasn't really an option; you would've been hunted down. But now? You probably would be listed as a casualty. You could theoretically disappear and attempt to live anonymously and do what you wanted to do in the first place. Just travel and play. Your family would even be compensated for your death, but still…you'd hate to put them through the grief of it, if it isn't true.

Before you ponder your future options any further, you suddenly feel a pain in your side…you look down and see that you're bleeding. Apparently you were stabbed and didn't even realize it due to the adrenaline. You're feeling the pain now though and you attempt to stop the bleeding as much as you can.

Regardless of what you're going to do in the future, right now you have to find civilization to at least get fixed up. The problem is that you don't know where the hell you are. You look around for some possible landmarks, but you're not seeing anything familiar. Lacking any other ideas, you start walking in the general direction of where you think the Zalan Empire is located.

You walk for a few hours and the pain is getting worse. You start thinking that you might not get the chance to worry anymore about your potential future, but a farm house in the distance gives you a little hope and you press on.

You get close to the front porch and that's when you stop. The front door is broken off its hinges and a few windows are also broken. You also notice a leg lying in the grass near you. Worse, whatever did this is apparently still around judging by the loud voices you're hearing from inside.

"Ha ha! Human women are such squealers! Not as much fun as elven women though!"
"Oh that's real original. Why is everyone always got such a fucking hard on for elven women? Too damn fragile if you ask me."
"Go fucking rape a troll girl then."
"Huh. Easier said than done my unimaginative friend. I tried that once and almost got married."
"HAHAHAHA! See I told you this would be more fun than following Velzix…hey you smell that?"
"Yes, I did sense the smell of fresh human blood in the air. Do you suppose we missed one?"
"Only one way to find out!"

At this point you start to back away as quickly as you can. You can't even run due to the pain, but you try your best. Your best isn't good enough though, as the dwellers of the farmhouse have exited and seen you.

And as with everything that's been fucked up today, the ones that just exited the farmhouse happen to be demons. One is a bigger brutish looking sort, while the other is smaller yet definitely still more muscular than you.

"Well what do we have here? Wounded meat? I say he gets to that rock before you can catch him and pull out his heart."
"Hah! I'll take that bet!"

The bigger one starts to walk towards you, but will undoubtedly quicken his pace soon.