Deus Necros

Ludwig pushed himself out of the pile of corpses with a slow, almost mechanical motion, the sound of bones cracking beneath his weight mixing with the squelch of wet, half-mangled flesh sliding against the smooth lacquer of his armor. His hands sank deep into something gelatinous and unrecognizable before he could get proper leverage beneath him. The air stank of death thick and heady, like curdled milk baking under bloodied sunlight, though no sun dared pierce the clouds above. Blood clung in great slick ribbons to his regalia, and a smear of pulped viscera stretched across his thigh like a sash. Bits of bone, hair, and other things better left unspoken were glued to him as if the dead refused to release him just yet.

He rose fully now, his posture steady but uneven, an ache grinding beneath his ribs. The armor shifted as he moved, and though it was enchanted to mend, the body beneath told a different story.

[You have broken ribs,

Your shoulder is fractured

Your lower jaw is fractured.

Your left tibia is fractured.]

The words hovered before him, pale blue text burning quietly against the gloom, indifferent to his condition. A clean summary of the price paid for a moment’s misstep. Ludwig blinked the notice away, his vision briefly doubling as the fractured jaw slid under its own weight before stiffening again. He lifted a hand slowly, probing the edge of his face with gloved fingers. Bone grated faintly beneath the skin. The muted weight of his injuries pressed against him like water through cloth, dull, insistent, never sharp. He had long forgotten the sting of real pain, but the discomfort lingered like a memory that refused to die. He swallowed, or tried to, and felt the broken mandible click softly in protest.

Ahead, the speaker shifted, and Ludwig’s head turned with deliberate slowness. Standing crooked in the mist was the Piper, masked, lean, and bent at an impossible angle, his body tilting fully sideways like a marionette whose strings had been pulled wrong. He looked at Ludwig, not just with surprise, but with a strange delight that bordered on affection.

“You’re here? I never thought I’d see you again.” The voice was hoarse, breathy, scraping over the last syllables with something too pleased for comfort. There was cheer in it, but not the kind that warmed. The Piper’s mask grinned eternally.

Ludwig’s hands twitched slightly, fingers flexing. The gore slick on his gloves made them stick as he moved. He flicked his wrists to rid them of the worst of it, but only a few black droplets flew off into the nearby cobblestones, where they hissed faintly against a magic-burned street. The rest clung stubbornly, seeping into the grooves of the plating.

“That should be my question,” he answered, his voice rougher than usual, distorted slightly by the jaw’s misalignment. He didn’t wait for the Piper to reply. Instead, he muttered beneath his breath, “[Cleanse].”

A faint ripple spread outward from his feet, washing up his legs like an unseen tide. The magic flowed over him in a thin shimmer, and in its wake, the grime dissolved. The blood turned to mist, the viscera cracked and flaked off like dead bark, and the foul scent of death was peeled from him in layers. When it passed, Ludwig stood again as he was meant to, immaculate, composed, as though nothing had touched him at all. His regalia gleamed faintly in the fog-bound light, unmarred by the chaos that had preceded this moment.

Beyond the Piper, nestled at the far end of the street like a mountain blocking the road, was the thing that had flung Ludwig here with such ease.

The White Bearowl.

Even at rest, it radiated menace. It towered above the broken ruins, its massive frame brushing the remains of what had once been a three-story apothecary, now gutted to its bones. Its feathers were streaked with filth and its face a pallid horror of bone-white fur and hollow, unblinking eyes. Steam hissed from the metallic harness bolted across its back, a crude augmentation of magic and machinery that pulsed with violent heat. It exhaled slowly, and the air quivered.

A monster bred of war and nightmare. A contradiction of grace and brutality.

“I’m here because of a few reasons,” the Piper said suddenly, stretching his neck until it cracked in two different places, “though I’d rather not. But what can you do? When the council orders…” he rolled his gloved shoulders with a lazy flourish, “you have to obey.”

Ludwig said nothing for a breath. Then he rolled his own shoulder. The joint cracked, once, then twice, then audibly ground back into its rightful place with a dry pop. He stifled a grunt.

“Lot of things I don’t understand from your statement,” he replied, slowly rotating the limb. Every movement ached, but at least it moved. The regeneration had started. Still, it would be far too slow without aid. The Bastos Wine was needed now more than ever.

Without haste, he dipped two fingers into his ring’s inventory and produced a small, dark-glass vial. The red-gold liquid inside shimmered faintly. Just as he brought it to his lips, a blur of motion streaked toward him.

The Piper moved like wind through silk, impossibly fast, limbs snapping from place to place in a jerking dance of momentum. Before Ludwig could react, the vial was plucked clean from his fingers. The air where it had been still trembled with the Piper’s motion.

“What’s this?” the Piper asked, already turning the bottle in his hand, its contents catching the gloom like flame caught behind tinted glass.

Ludwig’s eye narrowed. “You should give that back,” he said, voice even, “that’s not yours to drink.”

The Piper paused, holding the vial between two fingers as though he were weighing its weight against the shape of mischief itself. His head tilted again, unnaturally, one shoulder rising as if to nudge it further.

“You see,” he said, laughing softly as he slipped the mask aside to reveal pale, cracked lips, “I’m pretty tempted now. Drinking a healing potion mid-fight? Tsk. That’s cheating, you know.”

Then he downed it.

The motion was fluid, careless. He let the empty vial drop and shatter on the cobblestone.

“I warned you,” Ludwig muttered, and for the first time since they’d begun speaking, a smile curled on his lips, not one of amusement, but of grim promise.

The Piper blinked once, then again. “Hmm,” he mumbled, licking his lips. “Funny tasting potion. Tastes a bit like vinegar…”

His words seized in his throat. He doubled over, hand clutching his gut with a sudden, desperate force. A low growl escaped his mouth, then a wet gurgle. His body convulsed as if something were writhing within him. “W-what, what’s in that potion?! Poison? Who would drink poison to heal? You tricked me!”

The scream tore from him as he staggered back, legs kicking blindly, his knees nearly folding.

“KILL HIM!” he shrieked, voice cracking with pain. “KILL HIM NOW!”

Ludwig watched silently, then calmly pulled another identical bottle from his ring and uncorked it. He drank it down in one swift motion and exhaled.

No reaction. No convulsions. Only silence.

“Shouldn’t have drunk what wasn’t yours,” he said, voice soft beneath the creaking hiss of the Bearowl’s sudden movement.