The rain pattered on the moors and forests just beyond the Emperor's holy keep, the light rumble of thunder echoing across the heavens. Cold. Unyielding. It had been a week since the death of Aemolius. He had been drowned by his brother. He was a corpse now, that Returned Revenant. His luck had run out, save for the scars he would leave his dreaded brother. Or so he thought. Under the soil where his loyal servants followed him, he sturred. His body shifted in the box they placed him in, fit for a king. He breathed in deeply but no air came to his lungs. He was dying again perhaps. He roared and screamed, his fist quickly pummeling against the fine wood, splinters and soil slowly filling his coffin as he pushed through. He kept punching over and over until the weight of the soil became too much for the coffin to bear, bursting it and allowing him to begin climbing up through the slick, wet mud. His body burned as he pushed himself upwards, creeping higher and higher, a hunger in his mind, his mouth slathering at the thought of his prey. After a moment or two, his hand exited the soil, and a scream echoed out through the forest as the hand was seen.
It had been days since the young Altalar Silus had left the city, feeling the fear of the guards for his mage activities in the sewers. He decided to live in the woods instead to get some rest, though the overbearing storm was painful to him. It was both cold and wet, making the restful sleep he wanted impossible to obtain. So instead he sat there waiting for it to end so he could get a good nights sleep for his hunt in the morning. That is until he heard it. The pulling of soil. He turned around, looking at the sinking soil behind him. He stood up looking at it, then to his mages glove, going to reach for it, for a second, before deciding not to. Perhaps this was merely the soil becoming soggy before his eyes? But then from the soil ripped the form of a man, his eyes aglow with green energy. His mouth dripped with the froth of a madman as he looked up at the man, and smiled, before leaping onto him, and beginning to throttle the mage just as he got his glove on. He tried to scream as the fist clenched around his throat, squeezing harder and harder, the magical energy, and life being sapped from his body until he fell limp and his world went dark.
Aemolius breathed heavy as he stood over the young mage's body, looking into the open and unmoving eyes of the murdered. He saw fear. He saw anguish. He looked at his hands, the bloodlust going away. This was not one of his usual bloodlusts. Where was he? What did he do? Did he...kill a child? Then slowly the memories filtered back. Of the water. Of the drowning. Of his brother. Images then of his loyal captain finding his corpse and burying him out here...then images of the boy he killed screaming for help before he felt the slight snap of the mage's throat, and the feeling of the trickle of blood dripping down his mud-coated hands. He looked up at the storm, horrified and shaking as he then slowly made his way to look in the puddle. All that looked back at him was The Returned Revenant now. Aemolius was dead and a ruthless monster was in his place, killing a mere boy with his bare hands out of madness and bloodlust, and doing criminal activity for nothing but a lust for coin, and pleasure. As the newly born Witchblood stood he screamed at the sky, body shaking as he spoke. "You made me this monster brother! You drowned me like a dog in the sewers! And I will do the same to you, and the rest of your poultry family! And worse, oh yes! I will take my daughter back and she will love me! You'll see how it is to die! YOU'LL SEE! YOU WILL ALL SEE!" before his laughter echoed through the forests. Madness was replaced with his sane reasoning. The Revenant was returned a second time.
Those who came to visit his grave for a ceremony later that day would discover it empty and cold, with a young Altalar mages corpse sitting now comfortably in a hole, his arcane glove sitting with him devoid of magic, with his neck snapped too, and splinters of the wooden coffin lining the lands in and about this shanty tomb of a Revenant. Aemolius' corpse was either stolen or he was no dead man after all. Shortly after this discovery, messages were discovered on the walls of the Willow and the Krupp family home in Regalia, as well as notes discarded around the sewer tunnels. Madness from post-death? Who knew.
https://forums.massivecraft.com/threads/muddy-message.74715/
@Xref74 @Aurelian30k @MrFluff1 @Lord_Immortal @Vegemiite
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