We marched back to Hammererden through a landscape that felt increasingly skeletal, the trees clawing t a leaden sky as if trying to pull the stars down into the muck. NeCola walked beside me, her breath misting in the cold air. Although the sickness of the Trial still makes her movements sluggish, her predatory grace hampered by the tremors of her rewiring biology.

The breath of Skauna

In Hammererden, we met Feremund the Steward. He was a nervous man, tasked with locating a “dark spot” on a poorly drawn map near the region of Skauna: the Grim Tombs. The journey was a descent into a persistent, low-hanging mist that swallowed the sound of our boots.

The air in Skauna tasted of dry earth and stagnant antiquity. We tracked the slow, rhythmic pulse of necrotic energy thrumming beneath the soil and found the tombs. We marked the site, informed our employer, claimed our coin, and left the dead to their silence—for now.

The quiet, however, didn’t last. As we stroll through the streets of Hammererden, a cowl-shaded man hissed at us from an alley, leading us to Councilman Giselher, a man who clearly valued his golden crown above everything else. It had been stolen by thieves who bypassed his guards with professional finesse. I watched him turn an apple in his hand. His frustration palpable.

We set off in the afternoon of Day 4, the sun a pale, sickly disc, as we tracked the scent of cheap wine and cold iron toward the north.

A King of the North

We found the theives as the shadows grew jagged and long. They were not mere cutthroats; our employer clearly withheld some information from us. They were led by a Champion who claims himself to be a King of the North—a massive man clad in furs and iron that looked forged in the heart of a glacier.

The air around him crackled with a supernatural chill. He looked at my fishermen and saw only grass to be mowed. My frontline of fodders will not hold; I have to risk sending in NeCola into the fight.

The Champion charged, a whirlwind of steel that should have ended us. Arnulf and the others were struck down in the first breath of the clash, their bodies broken against the Champion’s fury.

NeCola stepped forward, but the lingering Trial-sickness betrayed her; her blades found only the freezing air as her reflexes lagged.

In that moment, the glyphs of the Raven Tome flared white-hot in my vision. I raised my hand and unleashed Twisted Shock. It was a localized collapse of the veil. The lightning arced through the mud, a jagged spear of violet energy that bypassed the Champion’s heavy plate and struck his defiant soul.

Yet he persisted, charging at us even angrier than he was. Twisted Shock! I casted the spell again, and again, and again, as NeCola hold up her long spear blocking the wild swings of our enemy. The smell of ozone and burnt hair filled the field after 5 Twisted Shocks. I have spent  all my mana and am out of spell to damage him any further. A powerful swing knock both both of us back flying, but I noticed something, the Champion is bleeding through the gaps of his steel armour.

As that happen, for the first time in his life, felt the threat of the Abyss. He chose flight over glory, retreating into the mists of Skauna. I watched him run, my fingers still tingling with the residue of the void. We got lucky that he did not know that NeCola and I were barely hanging in there.

We survived, but the toll was heavy. Arnulf lay mangled and leaking vitality in the mud; while the other two were picking themselves up from the severe injury they sustained from the struck down. Any other captain would have mourned the lost of a company man. I simply waited.

I watched the fodders as the Raven’s ‘last laugh’ began. Arnulf’s broken bones knit together with a sickening, wet crunch. His eyes remained milky and unblinking. He rose, not as a man, but as a Cursed Shell—a zombie bound to my will. He needs no sleep. He needs no food. He is simply mine now

The caged wildling and the Western Road

With the crown recovered and the company held together by bandages and dark magic, we accepted a delivery for Giselher: a heavy crate destined for Holnisland.

On the march, we encountered Pike, leading a procession of cages. The air was thick with the musk of predators—snakes, bears, and a black cat. But the true horror was the “merchandise” Pike had hidden away: a feral human, shackled and gnawing on sticks in a cage of his own filth.

Pike, with his ivory teeth and businessman’s grin, asked for help. A helper had gotten too close and become a corpse in the corner of the Wildman’s cage. The feral man was now sitting on the body, hissing. I looked at the cage and then at my men. I sent Arnulf in. The dead should handle the dead. The Wildman lunged, but the zombie had no fear for him to track. Arnulf simply soaked up the blows with his unfeeling flesh while the others dragged the “garbage” out. It was a cold, efficient transaction for 250 crowns.

We reached Holnisland**at dusk on Day 5, a procession of the maimed and the monstrous. Sigfrid the Elder took the crate with grubby, trembling fingers, and I took his gold.

In the town square, I found a Flagellant, her back a lattice of self-inflicted penance. She is a vessel already hollowed by suffering, perfect for the Chaos Plague. Her name was Evett. Good, another meat shield.

The Butcher of the North

The encounter with Bakh Lob the Boil Burster was a collision of raw violence. A mountain of flesh weeping toxic ichor, the Orc Champion was a force majeure.

I unleashed my magic spells, a violent rift in the air that splintered reality. I watched as the monster, despite its size, turned and retreated in primal terror from the arcane rift. To buy our victory, Arngrimr and Ingjald were returned to the mud, their deaths a brutal necessity.

Amidst the carnage stood Arnulf, whose previous horrific ascension into a zombified wall of flesh served as a tireless anchor against the northern tides.

The shroud of Raven Town

The sun sets on Day 5. We have nearly three thousand crowns and a roster of souls that defy the natural order. NeCola is finally finding her strength. But the Raven whispers of bigger shadows. Giselher’s “ancient crowns” are disappearing with alarming frequency, and the “Possessed” are starting to scent the air.

We march toward Raven Watch next, to find those “worthy” of our journey. The Usurper King thinks he is the master of the dead, and I have only some fodders and a zombie who refuses to die besides a Vatt’ghern who is learning to hunt the very demons he commands.

We needed more capable fighters.