The dark age did come and yet, eventually, it too, ended. And with time a new sun was born, which shone down onto the world. Yet still no light could ever reach the duo still encased in ash.

A new form of humanity spread, and new civilizations rose to replace the ones that had fallen in times past. They built nations and kingdoms of their own and developed their own technologies.

Despite their many advancements, however, the kiln of the first flame remained untouched. Surrounded by endless infertile ash, as it was, none could venture far enough to reach it.

Nevertheless, as time passed the wasteland slowly shrunk, dispersing its contents onto the world and mankind grew more capable still, more curious… and greedier. It spun tales of great treasures and glory, of devastating power and even immortality that awaited anyone brave and resourceful enough to reach the center of the ashen wasteland and unearth its secrets.

And so it was that another such expedition was attempted.

"Alright, based on the perimeter of this god-forsaken wasteland, we should be nearing the center soon" The leader of the expedition said, a knight commander serving the noble responsible for funding and organizing this operation. He had served long and dutifully, leading many battles to victory. As such, he was equipped with a full set of steel plate armor that covered him from head to toe, with chainmail on the parts that needed to be flexible. On his side, he carried a simple, yet well-made long sword sheathed in a leather scabbard, on his back a sturdy steel kite shield and on his other hip, he also had a flintlock pistol holstered. He personally felt a certain distaste for these newly emerging weapons, nevertheless their lethality was real and so he was asked to bring one along.

The first part of the expedition, that he was currently overseeing, was militaristic in nature. It was mainly tasked with scouting a couple hours ahead for any possible threats. It was comprised of the commander himself, a small entourage of knights, also in steel armor, though of lower quality and a band of mercenaries. Accompanying them was also a short, bald representative of the noble himself, who was there to oversee the completion of the mission.

With them they only had the bare necessities: a covered cart for short term supply storage, one more in case they needed to transport something or someone and an abnormally large number of horses. Should the need arise, the knights and representative could easily escape most dangers by making use of them. In such a scenario they would have to abandon the mercenaries, but their lives weren't of high importance and they hadn't been paid yet anyways.

These precautions were deemed necessary, since very little was known about the infertile wasteland. No one knew what lived there, if anything, what the geography was, how it came to be, why it was very slowly shrinking or anything else. These unknowns, along with the mysterious and unique nature of the ashen desert, naturally bred fear.

Of course, sending only well-trained knights would have been ideal. However, it was also very expensive and would have weakened the noble's power during an already unstable time. These mercenaries, on the other hand, while undisciplined and weaker, were cheap, expendable and numerous.

They had spent a long time on the move and the journey here was long, arduous and nerve-racking. The lack of hostile life was little comfort compared to the unforgiving and lethal environment. The large open terrain allowed for winds to reach significant speeds and the loose and fine nature of ash made it easy to for the wind to pick up and carry. As a result, visibility was almost always hindered to some degree and sandstorms, or in this case ashstorms, were fairly common. There were already a number of causalities, people who got lost during a storm, never to be seen again, or inhaled too much ash and died from respiratory illness. Thanks to the ash's insulating characteristic, the wasteland also tended to remain fairly cold year-round and get freezing cold in the night, leading to even more deaths.

Due to the harshness of the journey, everyone present tended to follow orders without much push back. Even the mercenaries followed along for the most part, especially after the first few that refused to do so, died.

However, as the days turned to weeks, the fatigue accumulated, and they got used to the environment, the fear and nervousness slowly gave way to frustration and boredom with the mercenaries growing especially careless and insubordinate.

Stepping away from the map and out of the covered cart, the commander felt a nerve pop out of his forehead. Most of the mercenaries were chatting idly, some were playing and betting on cards and a few had even fallen asleep. "EITHER YOU GET INTO POSITION IN THE NEXT MINURE, OR I'LL BURY YOU IN THE ASH AND USE YOU FOR TARGET PRACTICE!"

After a short pause he then added: "We should be arriving soon", before moving towards the head of the formation.

Some of the mercenaries got up immediately, though most dragged themselves up slowly, complaining and moaning all the way. Their leader, who was about to win some good money was especially annoyed, as he went to the front where the captain was.

"What's with the shouting huh? We been at it in for who knows how long and the only thing we found is ash, ash and take a guess… that's right, more ash! What's the deal with a little relaxation"

"Need I remind you, that that same ash killed a quarter of your men?"

"Ah who cares, less mouths to feed that way. 'Sides, they were new hires anyways"

The commander made an effort to push the building irritation back as he turned fully towards the mercenary leader and placed his hand on his blade.

"Indeed, with the supplies as they are, we might benefit from some more 'new hires', I'm sure you'd agree."

The leader returned the glare with a calculating look, before he took a step back while shrugging.

"Sorry chief, 'fraid they all died already"

The commander kept glaring for a few more moments before he turned forward again and squinted through the ash.

"Good. Prepare your men to move. We've arrived"

The leader's eyes widened slightly as he also turned forward and through the clearing ash, he could see the silhouette of a large pedestal growing vertically out of the ground.

"Finally! Oi get yer asses moving…"

After the two prepared their respective units, they began their approach. On the horizon they could now see a large pedestal like structure seemingly made of hard packed ash, or simply covered by it thoroughly. The closer they got the more clearly they could hear a high-pitched whistling sound, as the wind scraped against it to get around, giving it an eerie and haunted atmosphere. There was only a single steep path that led up towards its top, from what they could observe and so made their way towards it.

Upon nearing it, they noticed something sticking out from the otherwise grey landscape, a thin black line was coming out of the ground. Calling for a halt the commander took out his looking glass and focused in on it.

"Hmm… it's no creature. It somewhat resembles a sword…" He murmured.

"A SWORD!? Quickly, quickly get moving!" Upon hearing the commander's words, the representative instantly leapt out of the cart he was on, anticipation clear in his eyes.

Sparing him an annoyed glance the commander ordered "Forward men… Stay vigilant"

Moving slowly ahead, they finally reached the dark object. One of the knights stepped forward at the commander's signal and carefully inspected it.

"Commander it, um, it does look like a sword. However, it is twisted oddly and blackened as if bur-" As he spoke, he moved to grab the hilt of the 'sword' only to have it crumble in his grip.

"NO! What are you doing, you worthless knight!" The representative screeched as he rushed to grab hold of the disintegrating sword, only to have it slip through his fingers and into the passing wind. "I will have you whipped for this!"

"QUIET! No-one is getting whipped, he moved on my orders and I trust his judgement, that it was an old piece of blackened steel" The commander quickly intertwined, getting a thankful look from his knight and an irritated one from the representative.

"Tsk. Fine. But the lord will hear of this"

"Hmmm. So he will. Now, get back in the cart we are moving"

The rest of the way was filled with nervous energy, but was otherwise uneventful and upon reaching the top of the path they were greeted with a broken stone arch with little of note to it. Moving beyond it, however, they witnessed quiet a fascinating and morbid scene. On the large circular pedestal was an open area covered in ash, like everywhere else, however out of the ash there were hundreds if not thousands of weapons sticking out. Weapons of all types and sizes arrayed in a ring around the clear middle of the pedestal.

While the representative started screeching again and trying to collect the weapons, only to have them crumble to pieces in his hands and the mercs were laughing at him, the knights were keeping their hands on their weapons.

The commander meanwhile felt somber looking at the scene. To him this looked like a graveyard for warriors. He had seen similar scenes in the past, though never to this scale. Truly, the fight that transpired here must have been an incredible sight to behold.

Despite not knowing them, he felt respect for these ancient warriors who fought and died here and was overcome by a sense of wrongness, as if he was intruding on sacred ground… Nevertheless, he was duty bound to complete his mission, regardless of his own misgivings.

After the representative broke the twentieth weapon in a row it became obvious that none of them were usable anymore. They had been ravaged and ruined by time, unfortunately.

Inspecting their surroundings further, they decided to head to the middle of the pedestal next, while leaving the cart and the horses further back to get past the numerous weapons scattered about.

There, they discovered an odd sight. Right in the middle there were two statues connected at the hands, with one kneeling towards the other and next to them another twisted sword stuck to the ground.

The group closed in curiously, but with caution. The representative went straight for the sword, while the mercenaries and knights kept the perimeter and the commander approached the statues.

The commander's attention was quickly drawn to the kneeling knight, attracted by his strange armaments. The statue's sword had the shape of a typical two-handed sword, if perhaps thicker and wider than usual, but that was a strange choice in and of itself. If the artisan responsible for these statues wanted the knight to be supporting himself on a sword buried in the ground, he didn't understand why he would choose such a long sword and cut it in half? If you knew what its real size was supposed to be, the sight became rather ridiculous. Maybe the blade was supposed to be broken and it just wasn't visible, considering the knight had sunk in the ash a number of centimeters.

Far stranger than the sword however, was the armor. It was made up of segmented pieces for the breastplate, the thighs, the pauldrons and the gauntlets, while, what he assumed had once been horns, grew from the latter two. The helmet was more typical as far as armor was concerned and sported a rounded helm with a large visor at the front with one long horizontal slit for the eyes and many smaller vertical slits for breathing, though it seemed to be somewhat mismatched with the rest of the armor. Most notable of all, however was the large circle engraved at the front of the breastplate, seemingly oozing melted metal at its edges.

It looked otherworldly and impractical, but he supposed it was just a statue after all. Functionality wasn't very important, though he was still somewhat disappointed it wasn't a more realistic depiction of ancient armor.

He was taken out of his reverie by the shouting of the representative, who was nearly salivating as he held the twisted sword without it breaking apart.

"YES. This must be it, I'm sure of it!"

Ignoring his outburst, he asked calmly. "What of the statues?"

"Huh? Ah right, do whatever you want with them" He replied after barely a glance.

"Well, if that's the case, then I sure wouldn't mind having such a beauty to wake up to on those lonely mornings, if you catch my drift" The leader cut in with a salacious tone, clearly paying more attention to the conversation than his surroundings.

The commander felt his disgust building up again, as the mercenaries started laughing and commenting further.

"Enough. I'm certain the lord will appreciate them, so we will take them with us."

Inspecting them further for a moment, he ordered "Their hands aren't connected beyond simple touch. Separate and move the maiden first and tie her carefully to the wagon. We'll have to excavate the knight when the rest of the expedition arrives."

Looking over to the representative again she added "As for the sword, it'll also be excavated along with the knight."

The mercs got to work, setting their hands upon the female statue and separating her from the knight, securing her to the empty wagon. Little did they notice the cracks slowly forming on the outstretched hand of the knight.


The unkindled undead slowly started regaining his consciousness as he heard strange noises for the first time in… But no, it wasn't just noise, it was voices. He tried to understand them but his mind felt slow and sluggish and it was hard to focus. He tried to move, tried to open his eyes only to find himself unable to do either. His body felt heavy and unresponsive. He started panicking as he slowly realized the situation he was in, but then he felt the fire-keeper's hands still on his own and his mind calmed itself again. He was about to drift off to sleep again when he felt a tug… and then another, more forceful this time and by the third time his hand was met by cold air and his mind jolted awake.