The Return

It’s been many hours of travel, old bones click and zombies groan as though trying to speak to one another. Other than that, the journey is quiet, there’s a certain sense of solitude even as the Lich Queen leads her retinue of risen servants.

A scattering of scavengers dog the processions steps, crows occasionally swooping down from the sky to secure a morsel of flesh that yet remains among the long dead.

Once more the lich queen finds herself within the Deadlands, a region brought about not by the natural formation of climates, weather or divine creation, no, this blight upon the world was brought about by the folly inherent in the living.

Wendara can still remember back to the days of antiquity, when this region had yet to be suffused with the power of ****, back when this place was still savable. Back then it went by a different name. The Wounded Lands.

For that is precisely what it was, a wound that had been carved directly into the material plain itself, the product of near constant warfare, battle mages cast magic that turned over soil, creating great rifts and craters, destroying the vegetation in the process. But that’s not what turned the Wounded Lands gangrenous.

That was done by the common soldier, the men and women who bled out in the dirt, cursing their gods for the misery that had befallen them, the men and women who indulged in their darkest impulses in a land with no rule of law.

All that suffering and hate, it soaked into the land every bit as much the blood and rain had, it infected the wound, now corruption bubbles at its core, the waters are stagnant poison, the wildlife, what little remain, are vicious and brutal, far surpassing the need for survival, now they just want others to feel their hurt.

The potent aura of **** and decay, it acted like a beacon for the dead, pulling in spirits still tethered to the material plane, shambling corpses without a mind to guide them, and creatures that have no soul to speak of.

The Deadlands are not devoid of civilization though, over the years the corruption had reached out, wrapping its cancerous tendrils around border towns, outposts and eventually even whole cities, those who were fool enough to stay, soon became subjects of this Dread Empire, either a devoted servant to the powers that be, or a mindless husk, slaving away for the glory of their masters.

The Necropolis of Drell, located in the innermost region of the Deadlands, the place where the blight runs the deepest, a place where the dead live.

Already Wendara can see the walls of the great city, already she can feel her subjects reaching out, longing for her influence once more, the stability she brings.

The gates are open before she even arrives at the walls, the many pulleys and levers held tight by the cold hands of the dead, creatures whose muscles never ache, whose bones never tire, whose minds never wander from their singular purpose.

The procession of the Lich Queen pours through the gates, spreading out and dispersing amongst the crowd that had gathered just beyond the gaping maw of the cities gates, unable to stride out to meet their sovereign as though penned in by a **** known only to them.

And at long last the Lich Queen is reunited with the seat of her power, the streets are abuzz with growling, groaning and feral cries of jubilation as the minds of the dead are subsumed by her will, becoming as much a part of her as her own hands and feet, a spark of the Queen finds a home in the soul of each of her subjects.

Wendara steps down from her steed, seeing fit to walk the rest of the way with her own two feet, the flock of undead that had previously been hounding her steps begin to disperse, vacating the square and returning to their tasks with renewed vigor.

With but a flick of her finger the doors to the palace are blown open, a frightful, howling wind unbarring her path, the Deadlands themselves eager to reacquaint the Lich Queen with her throne.

The halls of the palace are quiet as the grave, the skeletal guards, clad in old armor from ages long forgotten by mortal men, remain motionless as statues as Wendara passes by, this palace, this testament to the power of ****, was wrought not by mortal hands but by the dead.

The undead built this castle piece by piece and brick by brick, endlessly working until their mistress had a home worthy of her, zombies and skeletons hauled brick, mummified clerics imbued the foundations with the ambient negative energy of the Deadlands, amplifying the power of those who can manipulate the necrotic **** that flows through these tainted lands.

Once more a baleful gust of wind pushes open the doors, creating the first sound these halls have heard in months, clearing the final obstacle to the pride of this palace, the Liches Throne, the seat of their power, perhaps the most important possession a Lich can possess aside from the phylactery that grants them perfected unlife.

The throne was not forged or constructed, but rather, grown, from a large chunk of sickening green crystal, that had grown into place not long after the palace was constructed.

This crystal is more then just a mineral, when one stares deeply into the nauseating depths of the throne, strange whispers fade in from the periphery of what can be heard, strange swirling shapes, forming screaming, tormented faces before fragmenting, fading into nothing more then swirling lines.

The curtains to the throne room are drawn closed, the only light in this chamber coming from the crystalline throne, beckoning Wendara ever closer until finally, contact is made, slowly the Lich Queen sinks into her throne, reestablishing connection between the sovereign and her demesne.

She feels the approaching figure before she sees it in the gloom of the palace, a single floating skull, engulfed in a spectral aura of negative energy, one of the few individual undead that are allowed free reign of the palace when the Queen is away on business.

The Seneschal, a Lich Queens most loyal of advisor, a spiritual conglomerate of thousands of souls, their irrelevant qualities burned away and what remains being stitched together to form an ideal right hand, one completely and utterly incapable of betrayal, hosting thousands of lifetimes worth of experience in the fields of strategy, management, logistics and diplomacy, the ideal advisor for a perfect regime that shall never see the sunset.

The Seneschal speaks in a choir of voices without ever moving its polished white jaw. “Welcome home mistress, in your absence we have tended to the affairs of state, and can report that all is well within Drell and its outlying regions, however, Mistress Devora requests an audience at your earlier convenience”

“I will speak with her later, you are dismissed” reply’s Wendara with a wave of her hand, coaxing the skull to turn and float down to whence it came, once more leaving the Lich Queen in blissful solitude.