Cemetary Undead Continue to Rise — So Far, They’re Contained Only There

(Crossing, Zoluren: 294 Skullcleaver 359)

The call rang clear, I heard the thoughts in my head, there was going to be another tournament in the Cemetary.

A sinking dread filled my heart. I haven’t met either of the two necromancers roaming about trying to stop the fighting, but I certainly had heard what has been done.

The restless who have perished and buried in honor there could not rest in peace with the senseless shedding of blood. For sport, I heard it called. Marstan somehow opened up some way that would let pass things undead when the sacred grounds were dishonored.

I heard in my thoughts many things that didn’t seem right. One person was lumping Marstan in with Lord Sorrow’s search for a book. Another person was lumping Marstan and his companion Vaxin in with any or all evil personages. Only time will tell how much harm this sort of shortsighted misinformation will do to us.

I try not to share information unless I know it to be a fact.

But back to last night…

I went to the cemetary. There stood it seemed, a lot of people on one side, and a few people on the other, trying to get them not to fight again.

I added my voice to the group begging them to cease. The replies were shocking at times. I was laughed and scoffed at. One person said it was his "right" to fight there. Someone else actually welcomed the idea that awful things would be let loose and kill them — perhaps even spilling over into the town.

They would not move.

There were paladins there who tried to tell me their leader expected them to accomplish this bloody pastime, and what better place than on sacred grounds? I was shocked.

There’s an old custom in the village where I grew up. If done by a witch, it can be a curse. When all avenues have been explored, and there is nothing else one can do, to express your disgust at a situation, you dust your boots off with several quick taps, turn heels and leave.

As I did this, I heard the chill winds of unnatural souls beginning to howl.

I did not look back. I knew what was coming. I went to the guild to help with the people who had already died in honorable combat. I had not even gotten more than three paces inside the gate when the first of the people gathered in the cemetary began to fall.

They began to bring them to the Guild to breathe life back into them. I left. I won’t help to grant life again to people who desecrate sanctified ground knowingly. I’m not sure how long even the Immortals will look with a blind eye on this situation, and it isn’t going to be my soul that must answer for assistance given to defilers.

I sat in town, listening to a class and following some of the thoughts. They feared the undead would leave the cemetary grounds, they had already breached the Lich Gate.

People flocked to defend the town — and truly, the gates of the Crossing never saw any undead. That time.

I sadly felt the deaths of a number of people whose blades I had just blessed. Many deaths later, it was all over.

I doubt the last corpse was even off the ground yet when the call rang out again in thoughts, "Tournament in the Cemetary!"

Yes, they were going to do it again.

My heart sank. Some people just don’t deserve what the Thirteen give them so freely.

When the dead rose this time, evidently some of the instigators of the fighting in the cemetary — ran.

Yes, ran.

And the dead followed them. Curiously, the undead creatures didn’t attack anywhere or anyone else in town but those who had desecrated the cemetary and ran.

I prayed at what’s left of our temple for the safety of the people in the city.

We should all pray likewise. There’s no honor or bravery in acting the fool like these proponents of graveyard "tourneys" do. There’s no wisdom in defiling, defying, and desecrating places of honorable burial.

I don’t understand why they just don’t go somewhere else and kill each other. Are they so stubborn they won’t? Are they so stupid they can’t? Are they really this selfish?

Oh, forgive me Baresh, I think I’m beginning to editorialize. I’ll save that for the comments section you made.

I don’t know what today, tonight, tomorrow, or the nights to come will bring. I only hope it isn’t more of the same.