Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

"A complete tragedy! Oh people, my friends! Not a single one, not even one, not even half of one! None of the heroes of yore I have visited in their tombs answered my call for help, or worse, they had answered the call from beyond instead!

Argh, is it too much to ask for a hero worthy of their title?!" a certain raving lunatic of a prophet was currently singing his laments inside of a tavern, where he had stopped whilst on his way back to visit the king of Tamaris.

"Can you believe this, heroes entombed in personal graves, their coffins exquisitely carved and frescoes of their supposedly great deeds painted upon the walls, won't even bother to rise from the dead to fight again, absolute bums I am telling you!" by this point, no one was really listening to him any longer.

Except for the person that was sitting across from him, who wasn't really appreciating him going into rants and chants in the middle of a discussion.

"Quideos! Sit back down for goodness sakes, I only agreed to meet up because we used to be good friends, just go to the point, please" it was a fairly young-looking woman, dressed in pristine white robes with hints of a booming green, a golden necklace around her neck depicting a some sort of plant with a face, staring straight ahead right at Quideos.

"Used to?" the madman settled down and suddenly looked very sad.

"I can't believe it, alright, we are still friends, you are just a bit unhinged now, don't get depressed and explain" she urged him, rubbing both her temples.

"Oh my, thanks Joala, you know, it's a shame we don't speak more often, you are like the sister I never had, which is to say a lot because I never had much familial bonds, despite my best efforts to connect with parents-" he fiddled with his fingers.

"Quideos"

"Ah yes, my bad, as an archbishop of Phanes, you have command over many paladins and clerics alike, and I was hoping you could give a hand to the death hunters in hunting the undead" he finally began to explain why he had asked for her to show up.

"Quideos, we already do this and you know it, it isn't like you to dance around the point you want to make, is it about your latest vision?

I have gotten echoes of it, listen, I know you are competent, but with your recent streaks of madness and false revelations, few people are willing to believe anything you say, I can't just move so many people on account of your vision, none of my peers believe in you anymore" she explained, seeing him grown sadder and sadder as she spoke, until he looked like a little puppy.

"Don't make those eyes at me- Urgh, that's their opinion, I know you well, I can tell that you aren't having a delirious episode, even if you consistently look insane, explain the details you can, I'll make sure to try something to help, but don't get your hopes up!

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Unless something undeniably undead related happens, I can't take great actions" she made herself clear, but all her seriousness couldn't even budge whatever was going on inside Audit's head.

"Joala, listen closely, I haven't revealed everything, the amount of information I can share depends on who I am revealing it to, and as you know it, information that I can't reveal to someone, can't be revealed by someone else, the rules are set in stone, but, I know that something big is going to happen in multiple places, however, with there is hardly anything that I can reveal, ancient undeads are rising from their tombs, the gravelords of yore will go to war once more, risen from their sleep by the foil of a man fallen from grace-" he stopped for a few moments, struggling with finding the right words to express the most he could.

His senses assaulted by countless images and visions of the future, some clear, some incomprehensible, he had to pick wisely else he could send Joala on the wrong track entirely.

"Alright- Alright, the heart of death is unknowingly guarded in Bourgliotte, if you must take any action, it is to place more people there, ah, how terrible this future would be…" he shuddered, paling and growing smaller in his seat, his lips sealed from any further revelations for now.

Quideos and Joala stared at one another, the prophet looking spent and the archbishop quizzical, she spoke up.

"So, a veritable army of the dead is set to rise in the near future? Far future? You can't tell? But the problem is that few are willing to believe in that, otherwise, we might be able to rally and unite against the only great undead we know the location of…"

"Gravelord" corrected Quideos.

"That is a term that hasn't been used since forever, I only ever saw it in decrepit old books and archives, times so far back it might as well be fiction as no one can truly attest to them, but if the impaler is one of those 'gravelords', then don't you think it would be beneficial if we struck him down before everything starts going poorly?" Joala shook her head, knowing that there was already a reason why no one had bothered even attempting to dislodge the impaler despite him encroaching on the territory of multiple kingdoms.

It simply wasn't worth it, and it wasn't going to be Quideos's vision, or Joala's word that would change anything about it.

"If I must be completely transparent, I don't believe it can be prevented, so if anything, I would want you to make sure the greatest forces of lifekind don't get taken out, with your status, I am certain that you could do it, somehow…"

"Gather and maintain our best assets for what is to come huh?" the archbishop stood up from her seat, ready to go back to her church and begin the preparations.

"Joala? It was pretty nice seeing you again, by the way, can I come by the church?"

"Of course you can Quideos, no one is going to stop you, it was good seeing you as well, you seem to have gotten better since your last mad ramblings, be careful" she bid her goodbyes to him.

"Oh, if only convincing the king of Starkefolten was as easy as that…" he complained in a low tone, reinforcing the security of Bourgliotte would certainly be much simpler if the big man in charge of the country was willing to hear him out.