>The Sun-That-Walks
War without fire is like sausages without mustard. The fundamental armament of all sentient life. They trap it, tame it with steel and powder, but you wield it, pure and honest. At the height of your mastery, none could expose vellum to your gaze lest it ignite of its own accord. You wield the Old Magick, the arcane power of disorder and chaos, held to no rules except that which you impose by your force of will. As dangerous and mercurial as the flames themselves.

>The Carrion Knight
Death is merely part of the cycle of life, and being divorced from it, and only with the perspective offered by being outside that cycle can you come to control death itself. The dead heed your call, spirits stand at your side as an immortal, unmoving phalanx of rotting flesh. You wield the Old Magick, the arcane power of disorder and chaos, held to no rules except that which you impose by your force of will. All will fear you, for you deny them even a peaceful death.

>The Night’s Terror
Some say that no man fears the dark, that they fear only the unknown - that which the darkness might hide. They say the night has no malice of its own, no hate. They are wrong, for you are that malice. Darkness is your cloak, and silent is your blade, for the night heeds your call. You wield the Old Magick, the arcane power of disorder and chaos, held to no rules except that which you impose by your force of will. You will teach them why children fear the night.

>The Dhampir
You are an uncomplicated warrior. By sword, by rifle, or by the means of your bare fists you have brought your enemies death. You can manipulate your body to exert supernatural strength, endurance, and alacrity, though heartblood is the price for such power. You wield the New Magick, sorcery bound by the laws of man and nature, a magic of order and conformity, incredible power and strict limits both. There are none that can match your skill.

>The Puppetlord
Such is the intensity of your Engram that it burns itself onto creation itself. You are more than a mind, more than a spirit: You are an imperative order, as unyielding as gravity. You impose your will on others, your mind overriding their own as the light of the sun overwhelms the stars. You wield the New Magick, sorcery bound by the laws of man and nature, a magic of order and conformity, incredible power and strict limits both. Your enemies will kneel before you, before they die.

>The Unchained
Neither flawed flesh nor physical space constrain you, for you command true freedom. You have mastered combat as a shade, omnipresent and lethal, materialising around a battlefield at will, unbound by logic or reason. Your strikes are unpredictable, and deadly. You wield the New Magick, sorcery bound by the laws of man and nature, a magic of order and conformity, incredible power and strict limits both. They will not see the strike that kills them.

>>5659783
>The Unchained
Neither flawed flesh nor physical space constrain you, for you command true freedom. You have mastered combat as a shade, omnipresent and lethal, materialising around a battlefield at will, unbound by logic or reason. Your strikes are unpredictable, and deadly. You wield the New Magick, sorcery bound by the laws of man and nature, a magic of order and conformity, incredible power and strict limits both. They will not see the strike that kills them.
Biscuit Olivia

>>5659783
>The Carrion Knight
But I can support Night's Terror or Dhampir if Carrion Knight doesn't catch on.

>>5659783
>The Unchained

>>5659783
>The Carrion Knight
Death is merely part of the cycle of life, and being divorced from it, and only with the perspective offered by being outside that cycle can you come to control death itself. The dead heed your call, spirits stand at your side as an immortal, unmoving phalanx of rotting flesh. You wield the Old Magick, the arcane power of disorder and chaos, held to no rules except that which you impose by your force of will. All will fear you, for you deny them even a peaceful death.

I prefer old magik to new, versatility is great, and our power will probably eventually reach the heights of the new.

>>5659783
A not!Divine Cybermancy quest?

>The Unchained

>>5659783
>The Carrion Knight
BLOOD, ROT, DEATH.

>>5659783
Supporting either
>The Sun-That-Walks
or
>The Dhampir

>>5659783

>The Dhampir

Rip and tear

>>5659783
>>The Dhampir

>>5659783
>the carrion knight

>>5659783
>The Carrion Knight

>>5659783
>The Dhampir

>>5659783
>The Sun-That-Walks

>>5659783
>>The Carrion Knight

>>5659783
>>The Night’s Terror

>>5659783
>The Sun-That-Walks
He likes hot dogs.

>>5659783
the carrion knight

>>5659783
>>The Carrion Knight

>>5659783
>>The Sun-That-Walks
Burn them all.

>>5659783
>The Puppetlord

>>5659783
>>The Carrion Knight

Or

>The Sun-That-Walks

Whichever

You were once hailed as the Carrion Knight, for your deeds on the battlefield and the power that you wielded.

You accept no other title, for this is the one that defines you, the one that most accurately represents you in your purest form. The you that strides across battlefields, legions of the dead marching in line behind you, a wave of rotting flesh that tramples your enemies, grinding them into the putrid mud until they drown in it. The weight of that title can only be measured in the corpses made to earn it. You would not so readily discard it, as unsavoury as it might be to peasants and nobles.

The gel that has kept your body afloat begins to drain. You feel the true weight of gravity start to press down on to you now, pulling wires and drips loose from your flesh. Your neck, too weak to support the weight of your head, lolls ungracefully to the side as your wiry limbs entangle themselves, pressing against the base of the tank. Strands of limp, damp blonde hair drape across your face. Soon, the level of the gel passes over your nose and lips, curdling inside your lungs now it can no longer circulate. The world becomes fuzzy again, as your lungs fight to expel the thickened fluid. You feel each hacking cough wrack your body, each convulsion expelling more gel, only to be replaced by cool, damp air that feels almost as thick. At least your lungs were strong - it would be embarrassing if you drowned in the tank, though that too wouldn’t be a first.

The process could well have taken hours, you wouldn’t really know. Everything ached. Everything hurt. Every muscle in your body screamed against the alien gravity, something this flesh had yet to experience, even if it was a pain you knew all too well. The pain was good, though. It sharpened the senses, sharpened your mind. You were being called to war, and weakness of body was no excuse for failure. You would be ready, even if you couldn’t swing a sword or raise a rifle.

“Sir knight?” The voice from before, the one that had been inside your head, addresses you, through the glass walls of your tank. You now rested on the ground, in a heap, but you were still large enough that you didn’t have to strain your head to look up at them. “Good. You’re still awake. I must admit, good sir, that we have little time to aid in your recovery. The enemy are at the gates, you are needed at once, but…” She - and you are now quite certain it is a she - turns around, to the others, still kneeling. With a gesture, she bids one rise. A man, or perhaps a boy, in a quartered surcoat - red and purple, not uncommon colours, dozens of potential matches - rises and nods. “...we have recovered your armour, and some other equipment, from the armoury.”

The man-boy gives another nod, scrambling off to one side of the room, presumably to present you with your arms and armour. Your Squire, then? Too young to be an Armoursmith.

“My apologies, good sir knight, but while we were able to recover your engram, your deeds are not known to us. We had intended to present you with a selection of weapons for you to choose from, but under the circumstances…” She trails off, turning back to the Squire, who now struggles under the weight of a…

>...large sword.
By eye, you’d say you could comfortably wield it with both hands, though the Squire is struggling to keep the weapon from falling over and damaging the stonework floors beneath.

>...short sword and dagger.
Weapons that an ordinary man could wield, perhaps, if awkwardly. For you, the two weapons would be featherlight and strike like vipers.

>...mace.
A lethal flanged head, for tearing through flesh and plate as easily as it cracks bone, and a two handed grip for greater leverage.

>...rifle.
Automatic, likely, and certainly capable of reaching out and touching someone. Uncomplicated, and unflattering, but hardly ineffective.

>...pair of pistols.
You’re coordinated enough to have little trouble reloading and aiming two weapons simultaneously. In close quarters, they could be effective.

>...shield and a shotgun.
A heater shield the size of the poor boy’s entire body, and a shotgun he can barely carry over the shoulder.

>>5660896
>>...mace.
Man's oldest weapon, refined.

Yes, yes, perhaps a bit melodramatic, but it is a fine weapon against foes of all stripes, with peasants crushed and knights lying broken after our swings!

>>5660896
>...mace.
Good ol' clubbing instrument

>...mace.

Blunt weapons are king.

>>5660896
>>...shield and a shotgun.
I like the boom stick

>>5660896
>>...shield and a shotgun.

>>5660896
>...shield and a shotgun.
full retard

>>5660896

> mace

>>5660896
>>...mace

>>5660896
>...mace
In lieu of a Halberd or Scythe, which would be more thematic to our background, I'll pick the mace. Shame it doesn't come with a shield, but we could probably loot one as we murder our way out of here.

>>5660896
>>...mace

>>5660896
>...short sword and dagger.

>>5660896
>...rifle.

>>5660896
>...large sword.

All these nerds picking the mace and not the based berserk option

>>5661237
'tis a two-handed mace, to swing with all of our power.

If we wanted a shield, we'd need a shieldbearer, and I daresay we'd have no shortage of candidates.

>>5660896
>>...shield and a shotgun.
>A heater shield the size of the poor boy’s entire body, and a shotgun he can barely carry over the shoulder.

The Squire kneels before your tank, deferentially lowering his gaze to the stone floor beneath him, presenting the mace before you as an offering. Not that you could take it, with the glass tank separating the two of you.

The mace seemed like a fine weapon, albeit one that he couldn’t quite carry properly. Even with it in his hands, you can tell it’s a well balanced weapon - silvered steel, engraved with blackened filigree along the surface of the metal. The shaft is long, wrapped with rubberized black padding, and capped on one end by a spiked pommel, and on the other by a thin guard that’s more decorative than functional. The flanges glint dangerously in the flickering light. An uncomplicated weapon, as deadly in your hands as any other, though best suited for the application of brute force to an enemy’s vitals.

“...under the circumstances, we were only able to bring this, and your armour.” After giving you a moment to inspect your weapon, she finishes her sentence, before directing your attention to a heap of glistening silver, half stuffed into duffle bags. It wasn’t being given the proper reverence that a Knight’s armour deserved, but perhaps that could be forgiven for now. It is, like the mace, a simultaneously plain and richly ornamented piece, as functional as it was beautiful. Smooth, rounded interlocking plates, fused to padded black backing. You don’t have to wait to get a closer look for long, as the Squire, who had been frozen in place, unsure of how to proceed without orders, is awoken by another order from the woman.

“Leave that. Prepare the knight’s armour.” She demands, confirming your prior assumption. Whoever she is, she has some authority. The Squire fusses for a moment, silently puzzling about what to do with the mace. He stands, awkwardly shifting the mace in his grasp, before gingerly leaning it against the side of your tank. You watch as the razor sharp flanges dig into the glass, bit by bit while the mace rests. No-one else seems to notice.

It doesn’t take long for the Squire to do his work - moving the armour a few pieces at a time over to the tank, piling them on the raised stone dais. In the meantime, you scan the room, and test your limbs. Some strength is returning to you, albeit slowly. You can flex your fingers, raise your arms from your chest, and lift your head for a few seconds at a time. That you were recovering at all was a good sign, it meant that this body wasn’t a complete write off. That you were recovering so quickly meant that these people knew what they were doing. You can feel the heat start to pulse through your body, evidence of the frantic activity occurring deep within.

Even still, it would be some time before you could stand of your own accord. Hours until you could fight. Your senses are sharper now than your body, and you could feel the rattle of gunfire and the clashing of steel through the floor. You would not have hours.

Fortunately, the armour would do what your body could not.

Once the Squire has finished his preparations (and moved the mace out of the way, thank God), the woman steps back once more, withdrawing to a console, typing in the command that will release you from the tube. With a hiss, the glass slides away, and colder, drier air rushes in. By this point, it’s a relief from the choking humidity and your growing warmth. The Squire does not find reason to stand on ceremony for too much longer. After only a short bow, and an introduction he speeds through too quickly for you to bother listening to, he begins.

This was, traditionally, one of a Squire’s only real purposes. An Engram Knight, healthy and fit, could armour themselves faster alone than with assistance, and their equipment was carried and tended to by specialists in their given field. Further, there was no realistic expectation that any Squire might take their Knight’s place. They existed only to handle duties that the Knight had no interest in, to execute them when mortally wounded, and to aid them while newborn. He had been well trained for that much, at least.

He gently wipes the gel from your flesh with silken towels, before sliding the armoured plates over your body. The padding of each piece tenses slightly, coiling around you like a serpent until it was firmly in place, ready to support your frame. Magically reactive artificial muscles reacting to your presence, acknowledging their master. The Squire wisely began with your arms, and once clad in the silvered armour, you find yourself able to move them, and able to position yourself in a more… dignified sitting posture. The chest follows next, then the legs. It was an uncomfortable process, stressing your already weak flesh further than you would have liked, made all the worse by the distant sounds of combat growing ever less distant.

Once you can stand, though, you do so immediately, dismissing the Squire with a wave of your hand. He scatters back, bowing obsequiously, before returning to the other two, who had remained kneeling the whole time. You move to finish the set yourself, inspecting the helmet for a moment before you don it. Like the mace, and the rest of the armour, silvered steel, inlaid with black covers the surface of the armet-style helm. A trio of long, black feathers bob behind it as you turn it over in your hands. Like the rest of the suit, black padding covers most of the technological and magical features of the suit. It’s very much the picture of a knight’s helmet, complete with mock breathing holes and eyeslit.

Only after you don it do you feel the magical runes flare with a puff of deep purple light. The moment passes, and the flare of light is gone. Experimentally, you test your range of motion again. You step forwards, rotate your arms, roll your neck. All good. You weren’t quite as flexible or limber as normal, and you certainly wouldn’t have your usual strength, but it would be sufficient for the moment. More than sufficient to impress those in the room, though. The woman now barely comes up to your chest, and the look of awe on her face suggests that she’s likely never been in the presence of a Knight before. Strange.

You pay it no mind, reaching down to pick up the mace in one clean motion as you step down from the dais, into the lab. It was heavy, yes, but you had no trouble carrying it, and would have no trouble fighting with it, so long as you retain use of both of your hands.

Stepping forwards again, you find yourself surrounded by medical equipment, strewn around the room. No sunlight finds its way in to illuminate the grey stone, that job shouldered by harsh artificial light and flickering candelabra alike. It’s an oddly shaped room - long and thin, with high ceilings. At the back of the room, your tank sits vacated, pipes and tubes feeding nutrients and chemicals trailing off to other machines. Even empty, it looks like an object of worship in a temple. Directly ahead, a large wooden gate, bounded by black iron and barred by a beam, forbids entry. You can hear the fighting just behind it, only for things to suddenly go silent.

For a moment, the others hold their breath.

Silence reigns.

The woman is the first to speak. “Good sir knight, I fear that was the last of our defenders.” She keeps her gaze low, now, where she had once met your eye. “I ask that you… dispatch the enemy. Drive them from this place.”

Naturally, you had no intention of doing anything else. Towards that aim, you…

>...launch an immediate counterattack!
Be you a knight or be you a knave!? The enemy’s disposition and numbers are unknown, but you fear no foe, no wound, and no injury. As the woman said, time is not your ally, but you can make friends of Phobos and Deimos - Fear and Terror!

>...prepare a hasty defence.
You are unaware of what resistance you will meet beyond those doors. It could be a dozen men, swiftly dispatched, or it could be an army, headed by a dozen Knights. With the doors as a choke point, you can better dispatch a potentially larger enemy force, but no battle is won by defence alone.

>...search for a route to flank.
You have so little information on the enemy and on the environment that it is perhaps best to pause and search for alternative solutions. If there is an alternate route from this room, perhaps you can strike the enemy from behind?

>>5661955
>>...launch an immediate counterattack!
They think they've won. Now is the time to attack while they think they have time to rest

>>5661955
>...launch an immediate counterattack!
Strike fast and hard so we can secure expendable meathshields

>>5661955

>prepare a hasty defence

We’re still waking up, better to lie in wait and give ourselves a few minutes more.

>>...launch an immediate counterattack!

Terror and shock tactics seem fitting. Good writing by the way, QM. Really liking this so far.

>>5661955
>...launch an immediate counterattack!
Shock and Awe.

>>5661955
>>...launch an immediate counterattack!
Take the momentum, keep the momentum. We need bodies, and if the enemy advances the defenders' corpses won't be accessible.

>>5661955

Reach the door. Speak through it to the foes on the other side. Let's begin our career with some style.

"Against all the evils that you can conjure, all the wickedness that you can produce, they have sent unto you... Only me. The Good Book speaks, and says 'if it is possible, as much as it lies within you, live peaceably with all men.' yet there is a time for peace, and a time for war and there are times that living in peace is NOT POSSIBLE! They have sent unto you only me, and yet I am enough. Your doom is certain! I am a holy fusion of flesh, metal, and magic! Your death is at hand! I am an Engram Knight-"

Splinter door with single blow of mace.

"- and hell follows with me!"

>Immediate counterattack

>>5662159

Damn, anon. Now I have to switch my vote because your excellent write-in.

>>5661983
This is my prior vote, now I’m switching to

>>…launch an immediate counterattack!

>>5661955
>>...launch an immediate counterattack!
>>5662159
i suspect we are mute

>>5661955
>>...launch an immediate counterattack!

>>5661955
>>...launch an immediate counterattack!

Strike with all the speed and fury of a lightning bolt! No sense in waiting around, it was time to gain the initiative and dictate terms from atop their rotting bodies. You stride towards the gate, and pause just behind it. Footsteps against stone, muted conversation. Hard to estimate numbers from that alone. With one hand, you lift the wooden bar from the doorway, and listen as the footsteps draw closer, and the conversation more frantic. They knew you were coming. Good.

You grip your mace, and raise your boot.

A moment later, you thrust it forwards, into the gate.

The wood cracks under the force of the kick, and one half of the gate flies forwards, opening half way before meeting enough resistance to suddenly stop it. Something heavy and soft flies a few feet back and hits the ground with a crack. You don’t bother stopping to see what it is as you storm through the now open gateway, mace in hand. The first enemy you lay eyes on is waiting in ambush, though your sudden entrance has stunned him into forgetting his purpose, and he stares at you in blank terror, clutching a rifle to his chestplate. You were already winding up a swing as you stepped through the gate, made slightly awkward by the confines of the gate limiting your arc.

The mace-head slams into his rifle, the impact cracking the weapon in half, and the flanges tearing through it. The first of the enemies is sent reeling into the stonework with enough force to keep him stuck there for long enough for you to finish the job. The shattered rifle hasn’t even left his hands before the second strike, this one better aimed and delivered more forcefully, collides with his face. Flesh tears from the bone, and bone shatters like porcelain. His skull remains in place, but your mace sails clean through until it contacts stone, evacuated material exploding out of the back of his head and pooling on the ground. You wrench your mace back, silver metal now slick with red blood and grey meat, and leave the corpse to slide down the wall into a heap of his own viscera.

Next target. You roughly shove the gate aside with your shoulder, revealing four more enemies. One, sprawled across the ground, clutching his nose, was not a threat. Two were armed only with swords, and the last was fortunate enough to possess a rifle. The two with swords stood by the man on the ground, far enough away that they couldn’t stop you from killing the third, who had taken up position on the other side of the gate, though had wisely stepped a few paces back when he saw it break a man’s nose and send him flying across the room. That distance would buy him enough time to panic, aim, and fire his weapon.

His aim was bad, but at this close range, it didn’t need to be good. Lead shot cracks into your armour, and though you feel each impact like a hammer-blow, it wasn’t enough to dig through your plate. He would never get the time to adjust his aim to a vulnerable spot, though, as you close the distance, swing the mace over your head, and with the same sort of technique one might you when wielding a sledgehammer, bring it down on the top of his head. Instantly, you feel as the helmet and skull give way, both caving in just as easily as the other. All the vertebrae of his spine are suddenly compacted. He is dead in several different ways long before he hits the ground, hands still wrapped around the weapon that couldn’t save him.

Next target. Two down, one incapacitated. The remaining two enemies are evidently terrified, and you find it hard to blame them - they’re poorly trained and poorly equipped. The ambush was badly planned on many levels. You almost feel like educating them on the matter before you kill them, but ignore the impulse. If both attacked at once, they could’ve perhaps slowed you down long enough for one of the riflemen to have wounded you. Instead, even now, they dallied. One of them charges with a high-pitched, screaming war cry, sword held aloft and overhead. You raise your mace, step into the attack, and catch the strike before it can land. The blade slides down the mace before hitting the guard. His blade bounces off as though he’d struck a brick wall for a moment, but then he… attempts to push you back with his sword. Even weakened as you were, this contest of strength was so unfair you almost laugh. His effort accomplishes nothing but pinning his blade, allowing you to take it in your armoured left hand, and lift it up, dragging him closer as he attempts to retain control.

As he focuses on the struggle, and his remaining compatriot struggles to retain control of his bladder, you carefully raise your mace with the higher hand, aim the pommel against his head, and drive it forwards like a dagger. You watch the life drain from his eyes as the spiked pommel emerges inside his open mouth. With a vigorous shake, the corpse drops to the floor, followed by his discarded blade.

Next target. He stands, legs shaking, in what you judge to be a passable defensive stance, but his sword couldn’t bite through even your undersuit, unless driven by superhuman strength. There was nothing he could do, but you didn’t tend to play with your food. You step over the limp body at your feet and begin to make your way over to him, intent on killing him outright. That movement was enough to erode his will, though, and he drops his weapon, then to his knees, head bowed and hands knitted together in prayer.

But prayer will grant him no clemency, only expedite his death. You raise your mace, and finish the job. Another skull smashed, and another body left lying in a heap.

You allow your focus to draw back, now that the immediate ‘threat’ has been pacified. The enemies that you had dispatched were, interestingly, dressed in the same purple/red quartered surcoats as the Squire. You worry, for a moment, that perhaps you have just annihilated what remained of the defenders, but that only lasts a moment. They were not in defensive positions around that gate, those were ambush positions… albeit an ambush ill conceived and executed. Similarly dressed bodies that you didn’t create lay strewn around the area. Perhaps some internal conflict? It was not your concern.

You also take a moment to assess the field, dismissing it until now once you ascertained that no enemies hid deeper in. It was a large, open room, designed like a chapel, or perhaps a throne room. A high, vaulted ceiling above, supported by columns that separate the room into a central nave with flanking aisles. You stand on a raised section at one end, a toppled wooden throne a few feet behind the latest corpse. Not a chapel - a throne room. The hall is illuminated by tall stained glass windows on your end, bathing the space in a sickly wine-coloured light. Further ahead, candles cast the room in a warm firelight glow.

Then, a groan steals your attention. The last remaining enemy unwisely drew your attention by rolling around in pain, still clutching their broken nose. With a rasping sigh, you heft your dripping mace over your shoulder, and proceed forwards. This time, you decide to refrain from creating any more mess, bringing your boot down over their gut as they roll onto their back. You feel a satisfying pop under your foot as organs are split asunder. Unfortunately, that doesn’t kill them, just make them writhe in even more pain. You end their misery by bringing your foot down on their head with enough force to shatter bone. They seem to stop breathing after that.

Despite all the noise you’ve just made, you hear… movement, deeper in the building, from somewhere behind the aisles. More enemies, yet none responding to the threat. Not remaining in communication with their fellows? Very sloppy. Still, that buys you time, should you desire it. For the moment, you will proceed by…

>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.
There are many bodies left for you to recover and repurpose. Not all will be fit to make thralls of, and with your vocal cords still underdeveloped, your incantation will be poor, but there should be enough to cultivate a force sufficient to repel the remaining attackers. Once ready, you’ll set forth and finish them.

>...attacking immediately.
This was barely a warm up. They barely put up a fight! You’ll continue your crusade at pace, hunting down the remaining enemies and putting them to the sword - or, as the case might be, the mace - as soon as you physically can, lest they cause more damage, or complete whatever goal they might have.

>...speaking to the others.
Those that were with you when you awoke must have more information on the situation at hand. Though you’re not in any state for a prolonged conversation, you can likely make your intentions known well enough to seek more information on the enemies, your surroundings, and anything else that they might deem useful.

>>5662776

>...speaking to the others.

Minimally, it would be nice to know who we’re supposed to be killing?

>>5662776
>>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.

>>5662787
Knowing the why and how can come later honestly. Right now we need to press our advantage. We don’t have time to waste.

>...attacking immediately.

>>5662776
>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.
We're outnumbered and outgunned, whatever comes next we'll be better off if we can even the odds a little bit. Thankfully the defenders died near enough to the gate to be useful in death. Raise them all so they can serve once more.

>>5662776
>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.

>>5662776
>...attacking immediately.

>>5662776
>>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.
This is what we do. The art of the snowball. Former allies or enemies, it doesn't matter. More meatshields and pressure to be set upon the next batch of recruits!

>>5662812
Switching my vote
>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.

>>5662776
>>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.

>>5662776
>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.
There are many bodies left for you to recover and repurpose. Not all will be fit to make thralls of, and with your vocal cords still underdeveloped, your incantation will be poor, but there should be enough to cultivate a force sufficient to repel the remaining attackers. Once ready, you’ll set forth and finish them.

>...speaking to the others.
Those that were with you when you awoke must have more information on the situation at hand. Though you’re not in any state for a prolonged conversation, you can likely make your intentions known well enough to seek more information on the enemies, your surroundings, and anything else that they might deem useful.

If we don't get some intelligence, any surviving allies are not going to understanding that the dead are their friends. Plus, considering this is a domestic fight, we should find out who *really* are we against.

>>5662776
>>...preparing a spell to raise the dead.

The bodies are of poor quality. Ideally, you would spend time and resources on each, carving channels for the flow of energy across their bodies while they still lived, bleeding them in a way that caused minimal damage to their corpse, and capturing their soul the instant it became untethered from their body. The more you could trap, the longer their candle would burn. In an ideal circumstance, you could create a thrall that could last months, act independently, and fight with almost as much skill and dexterity as they could in life. Looking at the field of butchered flesh before you, you didn’t anticipate such results.

You stride around the bodies, leaving single bloody footprints with each step you take. You hone your attention down until it’s as blade-like and sharp as you can make it, feeling the subtle wash of the chaotic potential that permeates creation slip up like sticky tar running between your fingers as you pass over corpses.

A soul is the divine spark that animates dead flesh. In a literal sense, it is the miracle of life - the twist of fate that bends the rules and makes the impossible possible, tapping into a fundamental uncertainty and chaos embedded in reality. Properly attuned, anyone can feel the ebb and flow of the potential unreality that they’re swaddled in, uniquely strong around the dead, where the borrowed magic of life leaks from the prison of flesh, carrying the deceased to God.

What you are about to do is a mortal sin in seventy four denominations.

You find a strong body, recently deceased and mostly intact. Your hand drifts over, feeling the magical warmth emanating from it. The soul is strong. Energy to burn. Your hand wraps around the traces, coiling it like taking a serpent in your hand. Your eyes remain fixed somewhere else as you begin to kneel, forcing the energy back down, muttered words as dry as parchment passing through your lips unbidden. The body is cool under your gauntlet. Dead. You feel the tendrils of soul-fire try to reject the meat it has so recently vacated, but your will is stronger. A flash of heat washes over your hand, then the cold returns, colder than ever.

You step up, and watch your handiwork. Shakily, as though suspended on string, the corpse raises its head, limbs acting almost independently as it slowly, methodically picks itself up from the ground. From a distance, you could almost believe that it was still alive, until you see the wisps of purple-green flame flickering from within like a furnace. Behind the eyes, deep inside the throat, pulsing through its chest like a heartbeat. You watch as it decomposes in front of you, flesh drying, rotting, and falling from the bone in the time it takes the corpse to stand. Its eyes yellow, sockets weeping burning tallow. Yet the fires are cold, cold as ice, for death is cold.

Satisfied, you dismiss the first zombie, sending it to shamble deeper into the building, awaiting reinforcements, while you return to your grizzly work. These corpses would last hours at most, though more conservatively you expect to get less than thirty minutes. It would be enough time to gather more. With your first experiment complete, you opt for a larger ritual.

You work quickly, selecting seven of the best bodies from the field, arranging them according to half-remembered instructions in a pattern that is meant to aid with the flow of magic. One at a time, you daub their foreheads with blood, then stand between them, your mace held as a wand or scepter. This time, you don’t waste time forcing their souls back yourself. Untangling the threads is a waste of time now that the energy of their souls mixes. Souls are forced into bodies indiscriminately, and as one, with a commanding swish of your mace and a muttered word.

The bodies rise, flesh melting, take up their weapons, and fall into line.

The ones from earlier watch from a safe distance, quietly disgusted, yet polite enough to not let their disgust reach their faces. Down the hall, your point-zombie has met resistance, though it was too little too late. The undead were hard to permanently finish, even if one were properly equipped. Anything that destroys the body utterly, or attacks them spiritually can wear them out, but once bound almost anything less than complete destruction will see them persist. You now had eight zombies to command, and though they weren’t exactly fearsome combatants, they weren’t easy to kill.

A few enemies had withdrawn from a room off on your left, half way down the room, and had begun speculatively engaging with your zombie, jabbing at it with swords and taking occasional potshots with their rifle, their expressions a mixture of revulsion, horror, and confusion. The zombie makes no effort to defend itself as it ambles towards the foe, swinging its sword in wide, slow arcs as bullets whizz through its rotting flesh, and sword strikes bite into its bones. This fight could last forever. The zombie wouldn’t die, but neither could it realistically hope to kill them. No matter, you had more where that came from.

With a wave of your hand, the other seven begin to make their way towards their compatriot, the one zombie fortunate enough to be carrying a rifle when he died stiffly taking a knee and opening fire, to cover the advance. The enemies seem to clock onto what’s happening when the one that’s dueling the first zombie is suddenly riddled with automatic fire, before the bullets start whizzing over his head, carried clear over him by the recoil that the zombie makes little attempt to control. The survivors panic for a moment, but quickly realize that the time for conserving ammunition has passed.

They open fire into the crowd, just as your zombies begin to fall into a jog, but the bullets don’t even slow them down. One loses a leg, falling to the ground, while another loses an arm, but unless the injury serves to physically hobble them, they don’t even flinch.

The zombies fall on them like a wave of flesh, leaping onto them before they can retreat. Swords are driven into their guts, and rotten teeth gnaw at their flesh. They die screaming, in complete, utter terror. You only observe from a distance, as this commotion manages to attract the attention of the others off in the side room, your zombies suddenly struck by another wave of mostly ineffective, rattling gunfire. You order them forwards, but expect little. If your enemy is smart, and as numerous as you expect, they’ll probably be able to disable and eventually incapacitate your zombies before they all die.

If nothing else, they’ll be a distraction - one you can use to…

>...assault the other side.
You can still hear movement off on the right hand side of the aisle. Another wing of this place, sealed by another doorway, and almost certainly hosting more enemies. While the zombies pin the force on the left, you’ll finish off the one on the right personally.

>...destroy them.
Use the zombies as combined hounds and shields to drive your enemy from their hiding places, and then absorb attacks that would otherwise find their way to you. They are not the most competent allies, but fighting together still offers certain advantages.

>...raise more dead.
There are still more bodies that you can raise before you might find yourself exhausted of magical potential, and already your minions have created more raw material. Your body is still weak, and there is no shame in fighting with cunning and skill rather than raw strength.

>...destroy them.

Zombies make for the finest meat-shields.

>>5663843
>...destroy them.

>>5663843
>>...destroy them.
The candle burns quick with these specimens. Better raise the second wave as late as possible, while we send what remains of the first against the right side. First, the left must fall. It will also help give us more bodies to choose from to craft a perhaps longer-lasting second wave.

>>5663843
>...assault the other side.

>>5663843

>destroy them

Let’s finish what we started here

>>5663843
>...destroy them.

>>5663843
>>...destroy them.

>>5663843
>>...destroy them.
Defeat in detail. Take them on piecemeal, because if we don't then we may be overwhelmed.

I mean, we can probably be as reckless as we like against these idiots, but still.

The rattle of gunfire draws you like a moth to a flame. Now that battle has commenced in earnest, you can’t resist its allure, your tactical reasoning aside. You stalk behind your zombies, pacing through the empty halls, your footsteps echoing from the bare walls. There was, despite yourself, a lingering sense of wrongness here. Everything about the architecture of this place screamed solemnity. Every bullet felt like a transgression against the natural order. You were not easily moved by such sights, but nevertheless it gave you just one more reason to end this quickly.

You reach the doorway in short order. Though the enemy were distracted, you were very hard to miss, should you have simply walked straight through. Instead, you pause for a moment, peering around the corner of the doorway to watch the progress of your zombies, and to ascertain the disposition of your enemies. The room you find on the other side is a grand library - mahogany bookshelves stretch from the floor to the rafters, and from the doorway to the far wall, only occasionally broken by narrow slit windows that permit equally narrow bands of light into the dusty library. The centre of the room immediately in front of the door is occupied with a large table, and a number of comfortable looking chairs, while further in the room’s spine is dotted with glass cabinets atop wooden plinths, holding ancient parchments on velvet pillows. Ancient artefacts of great value, no doubt.

This too, was a room that should’ve been quiet and peaceful. Instead, cabinets had been thrown to the ground as makeshift barricades, a thick, oily smoke hung in the rafters like storm clouds, and errant fires ate away at piles of discarded literature. The barricades that your enemy had so recently stormed had now been claimed for their own, used to delay the zombies, though it wouldn’t stop them. The only one armed with a rifle has taken up position in the open, firing wildly at anyone that presents themselves, while the others clamber atop the barricades, only to find themselves battered back by sword swing or bayonet.

You see a dozen enemies, and estimate at least a few more hidden from view. They could certainly manage these zombies. Unless you turn the tables on them. You step out from around the corner, into the line of sight of a number of already terrified footmen, though only a handful are able to remove their attention from the zombies for long enough to actually do anything about you. With little cover available, there’s nothing for you to put between yourself and the bullets other than your zombies, and so you make your way down the room with all the speed you can muster, which really just amounts to a fast jog.

Once more, bullets strike your armour, but do nothing of note or merit - you aim for the left hand side of the room. Their weaker flank, though the one not currently molested by your zombies. They’ve taken position behind an upturned scribes’ desk, ink and parchment scattered to the cobbles. The defenders are three abreast, all armed with rifles, complete with gleaming bayonets, barrels resting against the desk for stability. Another man stands behind them, sword in hand, ready to aid in repelling any zombies that made it past the other line. Their ‘defensible’ position and distance from the zombies has afforded them unearned confidence. Unlike their compatriots, they aren’t paralyzed by fear, and for a moment you’re faced with the very real possibility that one of them might manage a lucky shot.

You lower your head, and push on as hard and fast as you can manage. By the time you reach their desk, your mace has already been drawn back and down for an upward swing, and you loose it with all the energy of a freight train. Instantly, the desk shatters into two pieces, the mace sailing through and connecting with the central foe’s chin, obliterating his jaw in a shower of gore and bone fragments. The two beside him are fortunate enough to not die instantly, but are pinned by the two matching halves of the desk that, while too light to seriously wound, are more than heavy enough to pin.

The sword wielding footman approaches to counter your charge, enthusiasm visibly bleeding out of his actions as he watches you obliterate the desk. Unfortunately for him, you’d worked up enough momentum that sailing straight through your opening charge was well within your abilities, and the few steps he’d taken towards you ensured that he was in range of your backswing before he could meaningfully react. You bring your mace back down, hitting him in the shoulder and sending him sprawling to the ground, arm rendered useless by the mace’s biting blades ripping out muscles and nerves as it passed through him. Hefting the mace up, you drop it down on his back and crack his spine. You can almost see his lower body go limp, before the epinephrine that had kept him conscious is suddenly overpowered by the absolute, mindrending pain.

Two down. You turn to the two that were now struggling out from under the desk, pale faces trickling blood where the wooden shrapnel from your explosive entry had ripped into their skin. It’d be hell to remove, but you’ll spare them that. They wriggle like insects pinned to a board, but can’t move enough to throw off your aim as you bring your boot down on the first’s windpipe. Before you can turn to the other, though, the other side of the room has now split their attention between you and the zombies. Up until now, they’d been perhaps content to let their comrades deal with you, but seeing the men providing vital crossfire on the zombies suddenly be slaughtered and executed has them reconsider their priorities. Now, they split their fire between you and the zombies, who are using the distraction that you provide to make progress, pressing on into the group of men that they’d chosen as their primary target.

They cower behind an overturned, partially burning bookshelf, and that had unknowingly provided them with the best protection against zombies that they could ask for. The flames lapped at them, keeping them cautious, for though they didn’t make the best of tactical decisions, they were wise enough to avoid the one thing that could reliably destroy them. The lion's share of the footmen had chosen this as their cover, using similar tactics as the group you’d attacked: Four riflemen in front, five armed with swords repelling zombie incursions. Half now turn their attention to you, leaving them exposed to zombies, but forcing you to abandon your original target. For now.

You turn side on into the incoming fire, using your pauldron to obscure the padded undersuit behind your gorget, and quickly advance on them. They see you coming, of course, and begin to back away, but in so doing quickly find themselves bumping into their allies, disrupting them as they fight a now desperate battle to keep back the nigh-immortal undead. You’re unharmed save for bruising by the time you’re within arms reach of them, and though your zombies are riddled with bullets, they’re… mostly functional, and reach them at roughly the same time. What follows is a particularly brutal engagement.

You swing your mace once, catching an inexplicably overconfident footman in the flank, carrying him to the ground, mortally wounded though not quite yet dead. The man at his side, first spurred by confidence that can only be bestowed by a group, now finding himself stranded as the others continue to back away, attempts to run, only to find his neck in your grasp. You lift him with one hand, fingers tightening dangerously around his throat. You keep pressing down until you feel him struggle for breath, holding him in place like a talisman, to ward away bullets. It works for all of five seconds, until their survival instinct overwhelms companionship.

The riflemen fire into him blindly, attempting to do anything that might slow you down, though they are unsuccessful. If the bullets couldn't harm you with a direct hit, they certainly can’t harm you after passing through an entire human body and its armour. You draw close enough to see the terror in their eyes as the zombies break through their defences, teeth and blades alike sinking into their flesh, dragging them to the ground to savage them there.

They’re pinned, now, between you, the zombies, and the wall at their backs. A few make an attempt to break from the pocket, to run… somewhere, abandoning those that can’t to their fate. It would only buy them a few moments at best, but you won’t even give them that much. You toss the corpse of the footman in your hands towards them. You can’t muster much force with one hand, but it’s enough weight to see one of them tumble, and the other suddenly stopped by a barricade of human flesh, living and dead.

By the time he thinks to consider crossing it, you’ve already caved in his face with your mace. You bring it around on the man you caught with the corpse, crushing his chest. Behind you, the remaining enemies are finished off by the zombies. All enemies dispatched, at least from this room.

You take a moment to assess the damage to your zombies. The one with the rifle is fine - oddly, despite being out in the open, he attracted relatively little fire - while the ones with swords have taken… significant damage. Another has lost a leg, another an arm, while one has been effectively destroyed. It is no longer animate, anyway, and you’d be best off writing the two with missing legs off. They’re no longer able to close the distance, so they’re as good as useless. That leaves you with only five remaining zombies, which should be enough to…

>...storm the last room.
You’re ready to finish this, and there’s only one last place the foes can hide, at least as far as this compound goes. You’ll rally your zombies and make one last ferocious attack.

>...defend you while you raise more.
You now have access to plenty of corpses, more than enough to overwhelm whatever resistance might remain with little direct interference from yourself.

>...secure the area while you attack.
Here and now, the zombies are better used as guard dogs and sniffer-hounds, to root out any remaining hostiles. You’ll confront what is likely to be the last remaining group yourself, directly.

>>5664824
>...defend you while you raise more.
Nothing fancy for most of the corpses, another round of mass raising is in order. But that man, the one left mortally wounded, maybe we can make him into a finer vessel. More than just a shambling corpse, if it's not too time consuming of course.

>>5664824

>...secure the area while you attack.

Great ambiance, QM. Dig the huge effort you’re putting into the surroundings.

>...defend you while you raise more.

>>5664824
>>...defend you while you raise more.

>>5664824
>...defend you while you raise more.

>>5664824
>...secure the area while you attack.

>>5664824
>>...defend you while you raise more.
>You now have access to plenty of corpses, more than enough to overwhelm whatever resistance might remain with little direct interference from yourself.

>>5664824
>...defend you while you raise more.

The air is heavy with the metallic twinge of blood, the acrid reek of spent gunpowder, and the oily, choking scent of thick smoke as you once again patrol the surrounding area. The croaking, weeping, broken men intermixed with silent corpses are overseen not just by you, but by the animated corpses of their fellows, turned to your purposes now. Most fall silent in the time it takes you to determine your next course of action, and any that remain alive are dealt with by application of your mace’s head to theirs. This leaves you with an ample supply of very fresh corpses, and while many had suffered damage that not even the magic of necromancy could alleviate, you still had over a dozen more corpses in this room alone.

You give the silent order, and those zombies still capable of acting fall into action. One strides past you, dragging a body from between your legs. Its skin boils now, peeling from putrid green muscle, ethereal flame beginning to burn its way out from the inside. Soon, you would be left with only skeletons, their souls and bodies expended. You could yet make use of skeletons, making weapons of even an assortment of burnt bones, but you would find it taxing, without the magical upkeep subsidised by their own souls, burnt as coal in a furnace. They would last long enough for this assault, at least, which was all you required of them.

This was no time for complex rituals or in depth preparation. You neither required nor desired finesse, talent, or even strength, only numbers. The zombies select another seven corpses, and have already begun to harvest more, making space for each successive ritual such that you can simply move from one pile to the next without having to stop, assembling heaps of intact corpses along the length of the library. You begin at once, and the scent of boiling, rotting meat is added to the mixture of scents polluting the room.

All in all, you get two full rituals of seven, adding another 14 zombies to your ranks before you deliver the order to attack. Near 20 zombies join the assault, organising themselves into a deep block as they march through across the aisle, following muddy, half remembered instinct from their half remembered lives. You return to raising more bodies in a more ad hoc manner, picking and choosing corpses that seem sufficiently intact to spend time raising rather than organising whole rituals. Behind you, your forces batter at the entrance, though the gate will not permit them entry. It bows and rocks under their pounding fists, but does not yield. Gunfire scythes through the wood, splattering into the crowd, though the zombies are unfazed. It seems your foe must’ve figured out that the tide had turned. Perhaps they’d cracked the gate and seen what was happening on the other side, and opted to take their chances alone rather than move to aid their allies.

You look up from your current corpse - one so intact you don’t know how the zombies missed it in their first sweep - and wave your hand. The zombies weren’t smart enough to deal with this themselves, even if they had all the tools they needed at their disposal. You order them back, then have them line up, and return fire. You don’t actually expect to hit much, only suppress whoever’s shooting back, and knock down anyone foolish enough to be trying to physically bar the entrance while people shoot over their heads, but it’ll be enough. You turn back to your work before they make the breakthrough, though when the wave of flesh hits the gate a second time, there’s no-one there to push back against it, and the progress they make steadily builds until the gate is wide enough to admit someone.

The report of a half dozen rifles echoes from the walls again, louder now the gate has been breached, as one by one your zombies begin to filter through the bottleneck. Some fall, joining the pile of debris that had been stacked against the gate as a buttress, joining your enemy’s defences, but for each that falls, two make it through, and another is raised from the dead. The way that the gap slows your advance would be devastating to any mortal force, as it gives the defenders a disproportionate advantage, allowing them to leverage all their firepower against a single target who would no doubt be felled before they could act. The dead were much harder to put down, and far more expendable, however.

While your zombies jostle for position, all as hungry for battle as you were and nowhere near as disciplined. On the other side of the gate, a stream of zombies join the melee, the fusillade having proven ineffective at stopping them. You weren’t certain of your enemy’s numbers, but you could guess that they weren’t likely to be far more numerous than the last group had been, and so it seemed likely that while they held the numerical advantage for the moment, that would quickly change once more zombies were able to join the fight. All you needed to do was raise more, sending them off to join the fight. One by one, you raise corpse after corpse, sending them immediately into the meat grinder.

The rattle of gunfire and the clash of steel on steel slowly gives way to screams, until finally the sounds of the fighting abate completely, replaced only with screaming, before that too falls silent.

You stop mid-raising, leaving the corpse undesecrated, sensing that the fight had already ended. Pressing your shoulder into the gate, you force the gap open, revealing more and more of the room as overturned wooden racks, laden with weapons - and now bodies - loudly grind against the floor. You knew it was a forge before you even saw any of it. A forge had a certain scent to it, and a certain warmth that radiated out.

The orange glow of a smithy and the hoard of tools only confirmed what you already knew, even if the corpses strewn around the room gave it the look of an abattoir.

There were no windows here, only the light of the forge and the yellowed, artificial glow of buzzing lights, cables woven around wooden beams that stretch from wall to wall. The forges occupies pride of place on the left hand side of the room, everything else radiating out from it like shockwaves around a blast crater. A large, raised bed of still-hot coals, and a chimney above feeding the bulk of the noxious fumes to the outside world. Iron bars sit beside it, waiting to be turned into… something. Anvils and quenching buckets sit beside it, as well as rough stockpiles of various raw materials. Behind that, long curved workbenches surrounding the forge, for large power tools, torches, and hammers. A barrier splits the benches in half, one half dedicated for cruder work, and the other half for more delicate operations, tools arrayed across the divider. Larger machines and completed products line the walls, battling for space in the overstuffed workshop. Happily, little damage seems to have come to the space itself, aside from some mess that could’ve been created either by the intruders, or by your zombies.

An artisan forge like this would seldom work steel into the footman’s weapons of war. Such items were mass produced as cheaply as could be, being more a tool than a work of art. Meanwhile, the arms and armour of the Knights and nobility were often ancient magitech artefacts of incredible power, constructed in a lab if not passed down through centuries. As such, the work of a smithy like this was primarily to repair damaged equipment, service an armoury, and (most importantly) engrave, emboss, and otherwise decorate. You spy tools that imply a more talented and capable craftsman than the average artisan here, though - hammers and pliers, yes, but also delicate instruments for repairing electronics, and yet more esoteric tools still. Magical tuning equipment, analysis foci, specialist wands…

You order the zombies to fan out and search the area, but you're confident that your work is done. You hear no other signs of life outside of the people you had awoken with, and though your enemy could very well exist beyond the walls of this… place, should that be the case, it can be dealt with later. The immediate situation is dealt with, and you deserve some answers.

Heading back to the lab in which you first awoke, you find most of the people exactly where you left them, and now that the chance of them all dying rather quickly has been sufficiently reduced, you pay them a little more mind. Two men, and two women, the Squire, an older, wizened gentleman, a younger woman in flowing robes, and the sharp-faced woman who you have come to assume is in charge.

She is the only one who seems to have done anything in the time you have been gone, as by the time you enter the lab, dripping with blood, she’s communicating with someone over a thin, pen-like device, held against her cheek.

Your appearance doesn’t seem to shock her now, though you suppose after having directly seen you kill at least a half dozen men and raise just as many as zombies that seeing you bloody couldn’t arouse much more concern. She dismisses whatever conversation she was having the instant you step forwards, though. Wherever she rested in the chain of command, you were definitely still above her.

“Sir knight.” She begins, turning towards you, before favouring you with a deep bow. “Thank you for your prompt assistance in the matter. My apologies again for forcing you into such an… unsavoury matter, particularly considering the inadequacy of your current body.” She lowers her head, her tone becoming more sombre. “I bear the responsibility for your premature awakening, I am ashamed to say. It was my order that had us rely on you for our defence. It was my decision, I can only hope this will not reflect poorly on the rest of your team.”

Your team. Hm. You open your mouth to speak, but the woman cuts you off before you can, likely unintentionally. She can’t see your lips, after all.

“I fear that the body might be beyond repair, but we have learnt much from our first attempt. Once reinforcements arrive, I would be happy to return you to the chamber. Should it prove impossible to undo the damage caused by your… improper awakening, I can prepare another body for you in short order.” She smiles, the expression awkward and unintentionally threatening on her hard face. “I believe you may well have just dispatched the last remaining threat to this project, and fully justified the expenditure of resources thus far.”

Exhaustion has been creeping into your limbs. She was right, this body wasn’t done yet. It was broken. You’ve felt better after being shot. After all the fighting, you were ready to…

>...comply.
Return to the pod. Time is meaningless for an Engram Knight. A brief return to the long slumber is hardly troublesome. You can ask questions better with fully functional vocal cords.

>...protest.
You desire answers, answers that you intend to receive before you comply with any further orders. It was no in an Engram Knight to be overly inquisitive, nor discerning with the banners they carry, but curiosity is natural in a situation like this.

>...protest
I'd like to know what's going on here.

>...protest.

We aren’t some automaton. We want answers. Now.

>>5665994
>>...protest.
what the fuck is going on and why were we not raised earlier?

>>5665994
>...comply.
They are aware of their mistakes and working on improvements. No need to spend any more time in this body, it would be undignified of us. We can start asking questions and shit once in a proper body.

>>5665994

>protest

Time for a lore dump, OP

>>5665994
>>...protest.

>>5665994
>>...protest.
>You desire answers, answers that you intend to receive before you comply with any further orders. It was no in an Engram Knight to be overly inquisitive, nor discerning with the banners they carry, but curiosity is natural in a situation like this.

before you return to rest. They owe you that much, don’t they? You frown as the woman directs you towards the pod, though again remember that she cannot see your face, and so reinforce the gesture with a slow shake. “Not yet.” You rasp, your voice coarse like sandpaper. It hurts to speak, even more now, after all the chants that your spells have required. You feel each syllable, scraping your throat on the way up.

The noise seems to have caught the woman by surprise, as she takes an immediate, cautious step back, as though backing away from a growling wolf, never taking her eyes off you as she moves. “Is there… something else you wish to attend to, sir knight? I assure you, our guards will arrive swiftly, and-”

“Not yet.” You repeat, mirroring her actions, and taking a step back towards the wall, resting your weight against it. Not exactly regal, but necessary, given how heavy you felt. “I desire answers.” You say, plainly. You couldn’t afford to be flowery with words, not at the moment.

She straightens up, and lowers her head in a half-bow. “Of course. I am at your disposal.”

Immediately, you gesture back out of the gateway, towards the dead and dying, piled on the floor. You don’t need to speak - your questions were obvious. Who were they, and why were you fighting them.

She seems smart enough to recognise what you’re asking. No points for realising that it hurts for you to speak, though. That much was readily obvious. “Ah. The… unfortunate gentlemen outside. Yes.” She pauses, looking over the dead with a clinical gaze. Though she seemed as… disturbed as the others by your raising, and the gore dripping from your body, the matter of the dead themselves didn’t seem to trouble her. Her disgust was merely a preference to not observe rotting or mutilated flesh.

“Forgive me, I would’ve explained immediately, only…” She trails off, before suddenly dismissing the train of thought with a wave of her hand, her gaze idly tracking up and down your armoured form. “No matter. You’re merely… not what I was expecting.” Her attention returns to the matter at hand. “These gentlemen work for the so-called ‘Duchess’, although I suppose she’s liable to find herself stripped of rank and titles for this little… escapade anyway. I always knew it would end like this. Ambitious witch.” She grumbles beneath her breath.

“My apologies, again, that won’t mean anything to you. You find yourself on the Duchy of Northern Nemesis. It’s a domain that encompasses, obviously, two of the northern continents of the planet Nemesis, as well as two of its satellites, and the equatorial island chains.” She settles into a pace of conversation she seems comfortable with, and a tone of voice that strikes you as being a little too much like an adult explaining something to a particularly idiotic child for your liking. Any chastisement you could deliver would hurt you more than her, and so you hold your tongue. “Recently, there has been some internal political turbulence, following the untimely death of the late Duke. Normally, that would not be a concern. There was a clear line of succession from the Duke to his son. However, his father died when the now-Duke, then-Marquis was on campaign, and worse still, during a period of time where he had been incommunicado owing to the assassination of his Farspeaker. There was no presumption that he was dead until it was convenient for his sister.”

Ah. The pieces are all slotting into place now. The woman continues.

“She was Regent briefly during the late Duke’s final days, and had quite effectively convinced many of his vassals to back her assertion that her brother had died. After the Duke’s death, she manoeuvred herself to be invested as Duchess immediately, then crowned as swiftly as possible. Unfortunately for her, the Marquis returned alive, though by that point she had all but assumed the role, and it seemed too late for a peaceable resolution.” She sighs, and shakes her head softly. “Some suggested a marriage to resolve the issue - not between them, heavens no, but their children - though negotiations fell apart. The Marquis was able to recover your Engram while on campaign, though, and established this chapel to produce a suitable body for you, and support you from then on.” She takes another step back, and gestures around, at the lab and all the people in it. “Hence, we are ever at your service, sir knight.”

“Where was I… ah, yes: Your recovery was quite the boon to the Marquis' cause, but it was one that the Duchess found to be a threat. With the court split in who they might support, neither could muster the military or political might to quash the other, but you would quickly disrupt that balance of power. She attempted to sanction the requisition of funds for the project, but the Marquis bypassed the treasury and used his own personal funds to support us. This-” She gestures out towards the piles of corpses. “-was a last ditch effort to destroy the project. Many took the recovery of an Engram, and the successful cultivation of the body, as a sign of the Marquis’ strength, and he was able to rally enough support to overturn the Duchess’ premature investiture, and assume the rank himself. She must’ve thought that without you, he might lose enough support in the Court to recover her position. Perhaps she was right.” The woman shrugs. “It matters not. With her footmen lying dead and nothing to show for it, she has only managed to sign her own death warrant.” The last words drip with venom. You sense a deep, personal dislike for the former Duchess.

“I should hope that goes a way to explaining the nature of the situation to you, sir knight. Have I satisfied your curiosity?”

>”Yes.”
Those are the answers that you were interested in receiving, and you have received them. You’re happy to return to the pod now.

>”No.”
You have more questions than that. While the pressing ones have all been answered, you wish to know more about the people that are supposedly at your service - who are they, and what exactly do they expect of you? This may be best saved for later, however: You don’t make for a gripping conversationalist at the moment.

>>5667623

>”Where is closest Engram Knight and who does he serve?”

All this political bullshit aside, our biggest threat is probably another Knight. Best to know the local power situation soon.

>>5667623

Write in.

>"My favorite... drink... is tequila... salt, and... lime."

Back to bed, no further comments.

>>5667641
>+1

We just need a more archaic way of phrasing it.

>Other knight question
Add this if we can muster the strength to.

>>5667632
Support.

>>5667632
+1

>>5667632
>>5667641
Supporting both of these

>>5667623
>"No."
"Who is the closest Engram Knight? And whom do they serve?"

>>5667641
Bump

>>5667641

+1

>>5667623
>>”No.”
Cringe tequila posts, don't involve poor QM in autism, you'll scare him away