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(My turn, if you would be so kind.)

Will post today, sorry about being absent, I'm involved in a score of other RPs, and finding time for all of them is a task in itself.

The Golden Army marched forth, taking lives and drinking fear as more and more rose to join their unliving ranks. Nations were left empty husks in their wake, the dead having risen to join their killers. Iliad felt no pride or satisfaction in the deed, only a feeling of emptiness resounded hollowly in his chest. He was a tool, nothing more. The breeze caressed his golden plate, yet his unliving flesh felt nothing, he was beyond matters of mortality. Yet, the hold that the Golden Man used to choke Iliad was slipping ever so slightly, and the former elf now conquered not only for his master, but for himself. No more would he be Iliad the Golden, he would become Iliad, King of Dust. He would throw off his master's shackles and use his own army to send him from the multiverse. Then, Iliad would die, the oblivion denied him for eons would finally be his.

The Golden Army continues it's march, spilling upon the banks of the Empire, ready to do battle.

Raising their shields high, the Golden archers fire their bows down upon the horsemen. The Liche Priests and Necrolytes begin to cast spells of ensnaring and entrapment upon the more mobile groups of enemy units.

The dead continue to advance, ignoring the arrows peppering their shields as the Liche Priests cast more deliberating spells upon the riders.

The dead carry on heedless of the stinging arrows, pressing deeper into Imperial lands.

The elite units of the Golden Guard form into a heavy shield wall as arrows fall among the orcs.

The dead level their pikes at the charging horsemen, intent on spilling their innards onto the soil within moments.

The skeletal warriors return blow for blow, sinking their blades deep into Imperial flesh.

Filling in the gaps left by their crumbled brethren, the dead attempt to repel the advance, hacking and gutting the charging Imperials with emotionless efficiency.

OOC: I'm going to be out until the 25th, so until then, Happy Hunting.

Marta, could you draw a rough map of the game world? I'm curious to see how far my influence has spread.

OOC: I have more time than I originally thought, I'll be posting when I can.

The Golden Guard lead the attack, parting Imperial flesh with their cruel blades, utterly silent as they butcher their victims, offering no response to the screams and battle cries of their foes. Those felled by the deathless host shudder into animation, filled with a dark desire to murder their former comrades. Liche Priests and Necrolytes weave spells of death and doom across the battlefield, drawing webs of black energy around enemy commanders, slicing them apart into bloody chunks as their subordinates look on in horror. Lashing whips of sand draw the moisture from living warriors, reducing them to desiccated husks in an instant. As uneasiness turns to stark terror, and terror becomes panic, the warriors of the Federation begin to despair. How can you kill what is already dead? In the midst of the carnage, a gold-clad figure rides upon a chariot of flawless construction, a huge khopesh clenched in his skeletal hands, from which blood freely drips. He feels nothing. No rush of excitement at the taking of another's life, not the wind on his face, and not the savage song of battle. Nothing. Unwholesome green corpselight drifts from his gaping eye sockets, curling like wicked smoke off into the air. His driver much more fresh, an Ataani warlord in another life, he clutches a long iron spear in one hand as he drives the spectral horses with another, his lifeless eyes searching out new foes. On rode the Golden Army, on rode Iliad, King of Dust.

Ordering the Golden Army into loose fighting blocks, and forming a massive diamond with his army, Iliad calls for pikes to be deployed at the edges of the diamond, ready to ward off any attack.

OOC: Good work on the map! Could you type out the cities on my path? They're a little mashed together.

BIC:
The dead march on, spreading out to surround the camp. Archers nock poisoned arrows, which drip black death upon the ground as their heads are lifted skywards. As the shafts are released, a faint whistling fills the air, soon becoming a panicked shriek as they land among the camp.

OOC: Hmm, I suspect shields....

Ordering the corpse-chariots into position, they charge down at the camp, their spectral steeds making no sound as they hurtle towards their prey.

Oh great and powerful Dungeon Master, may I have my post, great one?

The corpse-chariots that initially it the shield wall pull back to the rear of the Golden Army, beating a hasty retreat from the holy magicks of their foe. Golden Pikemen step forward, jabbing the Knights of Phobos with fantastically long impaling spears. The Pikemen move to surround the Knights, impaling those within the gaps of the shield wall, pressing ever forwards in a tightening noose. Archers from a nearby hilltop launch arrows by the hundreds down upon the living, their shafts screaming down to hit their marks. The Liche Priests and Necrolytes engage in soul-crushing magickal duels that reduced the loosers to desiccated husks that crumbled to dust and were blown away in the wind. The King of Dust himself added his eldritch might to such duels, scouring the minds of enemy wizards with claws of darkness that ripped free from the bodies of their victims. Golden Spearmen moved to complement the Golden Pikemen, stepping behind their longer brothers to leap forwards when the Pikemen had fully closed the noose.

Standing atop his chariot, the King of Dust chants, calling a great whirling mist of golden sand formed from the sundered bones of his warriors, forming a colossal globe of dust that sucks the moisture from the air, withering plants and killing the soil as the water within them dries completely. Spinning the globe about in his skeletal fingers, Iliad breathed forth malignant energy granted him by the Golden Man himself, not as much hurling the sphere as guiding it along the ranks of the holy ones. The King of Dust whipped the globe of grave-sand across the enemy wizards, leeching the moisture from their bodies until they crumbled into dust, their remains joining the great ball before he pushed it within the ranks of the knights themselves, eliciting screams of pain as their moisture evaporated. Iliad sent a psychic command to his sorcerers, ordering them to cast spells of protection and enhancement upon the Golden Army, forcing them ever on against their eternal foe.

Upon viewing the slaughter of his unliving warriors, the King of Dust wrenched forth a scream of hatred from his warped and mangled soul, snapping the minds of the weak-willed with it's awful intensity. He spoke, driving the globe of dust across the ranks of the foe as he did so, his voice soulless and otherworldly. "You corpse-breath worms! How dare you defile the bodies of our sacred dead, scattering their bones across the tainted heathen soil of your dead gods! I curse you! May your warm blood turn to scalding sand in your veins! May the very earth scream as it dies, forever barren as your women! May your dead rise to murder you in the bright of day, tearing you apart for all to see! The heavens themselves will purge your nation from this world with rains of blood! No one will remember the Federation, nor the Cult of Phobos! Your gods are dead, for I hath slain them! Thus does the King of Dust curse you!" Bringing the globe to rest in the center of the foe, Iliad releases the magic within with explosive force, spraying burning sand in all directions to leech the moisture from watery shells. Driving his chariot into the ranks of the holy, Iliad swings his massive khopesh, stealing lives and sowing murder with every stroke. The remnants of the Golden Army follow behind, butchering those knocked aside by their lord's charge, claiming the death-rattles of their victims. The surviving sorcerers pour their magic into protecting their liege, surrounding him in a nimbus of shimmering golden light.

The Golden Army swept over the survivors in a great glittering tide, stabbing and cutting apart any that remained alive, their screams fading as they died. Ordering the Liche Priests to cast preservative charms upon the corpses of the foe, ensuring that their flesh would not rot in the long years to come, the King of Dust jammed each of their lances into the dying earth, planting a forest of blades as he did so. The sorcerers worked as one, raising the Knights of Phobos high into the air, then dropping them like rag dolls upon their own holy weapons creating a monument to Iliad's victory. More magic hummed in the air as powerful bands and seals were placed upon the lances, forcing them to remain upright and rigid for eternity. When the grisly task was at it's end, over two-thousand bodies lay impaled upon their own weapons, a testament to the wrath of the King of Dust. Mustering off, the Golden Army turned ever eastward, seeking out new 'recruits' for the deathless host.

OOC: This is rather egotistical, but what's the world's general reaction to the advance of the Golden Army? Also, whatever happened to the Great Necromancer?

After some time of consideration and debate, the King and his advisors come across a plan; they would send a living dupe to inform one of the holy orders near the citadel, leading them to initiate a siege of the damned city. When the demon's magic was no longer focused on the Golden Army, they would rise from the ashen plain to sweep both attackers and defenders from the face of the earth. For several hours, the Liche Priests labored to sink the Golden Army beneath the earth, and beneath the notice of the demonic wizards. There, they waited.

Tyranic Marta wrote:Hm, very nice,

Btw Bringer, Mordo, what do you think of the novel idea

I love it, do it! There's nothing quiet as satisfying as writing a story about a world you love.

Hey Marta, mind if I do some recruiting? Love the undead paladin concept, by the way.

Tyranic Marta wrote:The doppelganger sent to the holy orders takes a couple of days to get there, when he does he informs them of the prescence of the city. Soon many armies rise up to crush the Daemonic bastion.

Excellent, keep me posted.

Tyranic Marta wrote:They arnt undead lol, Their god has eturned them to full life. but thankyou anyway

and no no problem at all, it will take the armies of the Federation and of the holy orders a few days to get to the city

So, that was a yes to the recruiting?

Tyranic Marta wrote:Ive already started chap one so if you guys want to rock over and have a look be my guests

I would be honored.

Can I have an update on the siege, please?

The villagers had been taken completely unawares, dozens of them slaughtered in mere moments as gilded skeletons wielding ancient weapons burst from the dirt floors of their homes, carving their quivering flesh into bloody chunks. Screams rent the night air as the butchery continued, strange spell wards preventing anyone from escaping the doomed hamlet. The militia attempted to mount a defense, but where slain when their lungs filled with burning sand. The golden warriors, their murder work done, drug the corpses of the slain back beneath the earth from whence they came, 'recruits' for the King of Dust.

Siege update, please