The Rise of Ryu-Shi

Come children and gather around. Let me tell you a tale about sacrifice and vengeance, and about an ancient hero’s undying anger and a justice that will always reclaim what is lost.

A time ago there was a great city, capital of a great empire, that lead a great many kings in a war that conquered a great many lands and peoples. Our story begins in that same city.

A city official walked slowly through the halls of the hidden catacombs. He was among the few remaining who remembered the existence of these halls, which is why it was his turn this year to check the wards. He had only marginal magical knowledge and ability, but he could feel both the wards and what was straining against them. One by one he counted them as he walked by, all of them seemed in place, yet he was forever uneasy just knowing the wards were needed.

After finishing his count he approached the alter where his final task would be done, there the long decayed copse used in the first ritual lay, nothing more than bones now. “Necromancy,” the mayor practically spat the word at the skeletal remains of a former enemy, “curses on you for your necromancy…I cannot bare either of you.”

The face of the corpse turned to the mayor and laughed, a deep hollow sound coming from the very soul still trapped in the bones, and used as the fuel that kept the wards in place.

Now angered by the defiance of the dead foe the official pulled the scrap of parchment from his robes and read the incantation. The energy of the wards flared and then abated, the skeleton lay still once more, the ceremony insured that there would be one more year of suffering for the souls trapped here.

The mayor then turned on his heals and left.

The skeleton’s head rose to insure that he was alone, today was the day he had been waiting for. The foolish official in his haste and disgust has failed to notice that the sacrifice had knocked one of the artifacts from the alter, the ceremony had instead doomed his great city.

Released from his bonds the skeleton rose from the alter and knelt, raising a prayer to a nearly forgotten god. One that he had been forbidden to pray to once when he served his people as a Cleric is service of Bendis. Now his prayers turned to a god of the underworld, the god of necromancy and ****, chaos and cataclysm.

“Shershi, guide my hands…deliver my oppressors into my hands, grant me flesh that I may carry our people from these halls and into our ancestral homes. There we will serve you, and the souls of all we kill will be yours to do with as you please, I will be your high priest and carry your curse for all of time…only give me the means to avenge our people for our ages of pain and suffering at the hands of these men who would deny us **** and would keep us from entering even your halls in the deep.”

There was a soft hissing sound as the alter parted and a figure more ghastly and gruesome than words can describe rose from the splitting alter. “Do you know the cost of my curse that you seek?”

“Yes, my god, I swear to your service knowing the cost.”

“So be it,” the god’s hissing laugh would have terrified the Cleric to **** had it but been possible, “Tell me your name.”

“Ryukoro.” The skeleton told the dread lord.

“Then from this day forward you will bare my name, along with my curse. Rise now, Ryu-Shi, my priest. And do you masters bidding…leave not one of the humans in this city living, raise a pyre here and lead all these lost souls down the path to utter destruction. By blood will you live and never die, my servant.” The dread god then cut himself and let the blood fall onto the skeletal head, sealing him forever into his service.

The dread-priest rose and turned to the wards, the souls imprisoned beyond were of all races, all of them deprived of **** for the ages as their captors sought to punish them for all of time. But even as the times and ages change nothing could stop their own end of days.

The necromancy that had been inflicted on his own soul provided the Dread-Priest with the keys and the knowledge to release the wards, but first he bound the souls to his bidding before he would free them. One after another they fell under his will until they were all his servants and could not seek the afterlife without his permission. Then the wards were released and the maddened spirits gathered round.

“Tonight is our night, tonight for all time man will fear this night and fear the souls of the dead, tonight we not only earn our own freedom, tonight we also topple an empire. Seize the capital palace, possess the bodies of the living and seal the gates of the city, kill all the guards of the city wall before they can raise an alarm, then await my further instructions.”

The spirits did as commanded and Dread-Priest climbed the stairs from the cursed catacombs, his skeletal feet clicking on the stones as he climbed from hell and into a hell that would be of his own making.

He emerged from a hidden door in the palace to see all the imperial officials kneeling in terror, their actions no longer their own, but fully aware of everything that was happening.

Seeing the official last to see the cursed halls the Dread-Priest walked to him and whispered in his ear, “Know in your last breath that it was you who unbound me…it is on your soul that all the **** of your people will burden.” Then he bit the official and as the fresh blood flowed over his teeth his flesh began to grow back, and he drank hungrily until the official had been consumed and lay little more than a husk on the floor.

The next to be drank dry was the emperor, a boy scarce 20, who had no knowledge of the crimes that his empire had committed in the past. Such a killing seemed more like mercy than anything else to the Dread-Priest, but his youthful blood gave him the remaining strength that he lacked to fully restore his body to it’s former self. The emperors garb was then taken as a covering for the body that was now exposed in full elven grace and glory.

Fully restored He walked to the gates with his servants following behind. He left the city and its high impenetrable walls. Again he delved into necromancy, busting the corpses of the guards throughout the city walls into flames. The city would be consumed as the very walls that had kept them alive would now keep them from escaping their deaths.

All that remained was to deal with the officials who had followed him unwillingly out of the city. These the Dread-Priest had impelled as a display for all to see.

Having dealt with the people of the city, the Dread priest again prayed to the Dread Lord Shershi, who again appeared before his priest. “You have served me well. Who are these tortured souls with you?”

The Dread-Priest spread his arms never rising his eyes to the Dread Lord, “These are my gifts to you. I had cursed them to walk the land once every year on this night to hunt the living, now I give them to you my great Dread Father to do with as you please.”

The Dread Lord laughed, and the souls cried in fear, “Well and pleasing this is to me, your curse shall remain for all time and they will suffer in my halls the rest of the year for the crimes they do to the living on this night of freedom and hatred. But you and the mortals in your service I will spare from the blight of these lost souls. Now go and serve me as well as you have tonight…I have a village that fears me. Go there and serve me as my High Priest, build me a kingdom and an army to slay the servants of my enemies.”

And that is how it came to be that the Dread-Priest, Lord Ryu-Shi, came to our city and now leads us in our wars against the great kings of old and new. Kings who have locked themselves in their cities surrounded by they’re armies fearing the same **** that befell the Imperial Capital of old, letting the lands around them fall into chaos as heroes rise up to lead the peoples of the land in wars of old hatreds. But times and ages change…and soon the end of the great kings will be upon them as new empires rise to take their place.