Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Progress was slow, and the stronger warriors of the desert legion didn't have much to do as all threat could be taken out with relative ease, sand whales could be tricky foes if you let them get to you, but no soldier was foolish enough to get close to such a beast, the sand beast was always turned into a pincushion before it was allowed to even realise that it was under attack.

The same was true for all of the creatures that were encountered and discovered by the undeads as the scouts explored every millimeter available and more camps were being set up every week or so, the simple, scorching sun wasn't showing any signs of going away even after nearly a month passed since it loomed over.

It was to be assumed that the undeads had merely shown up within the realm toward the end of its last cycle…

The desert was home to many creatures, most of which weren't even that bizarre despite the extremely harsh environment as it seemed like the best way to thrive as a species was just not to engage much with the surface, if not at all, most creatures buried themselves a fair distance below ground and would only arise for short period of times regardless of the number of suns hovering in the sky.

Water was scarce, in fact, the undead had not found a single water source of any kind since their arrival, and considering that the ground seemed to be made up of sand and nothing else for kilometers down, the formation of underground bodies of water seemed unlikely as well.

Their medics deduced from dissecting a bunch of them that they seemed to all be overly specialised in extracting moisture from what they ate, and also converting blood into hydration, but that this was cause for one to wonder where that original moisture had even come from since they couldn't have just spontaneously created it considering that they were all vying to steal it from one another.

And taking into account the utter absence of clouds in this realm, it probably never rained either.

Though, they had naturally encountered a few beings that seemed to have adapted in other ways, having no need to be hydrated as they were dry husks and instead possessed some sort of external organ that acted like a flower and nourished upon the ample amounts of sunlight provided at all times, basically using photosynthesis as a way of life.

Still, there was yet to be any sighting of creatures that survived by embodying heat or light, they had expected some sort of magical beasts that simply couldn't care less about the suffocating temperatures, but none had been sighted yet.

Their existence shouldn't be impossible as although overheated, energies did exist in abundance in the air.

But so far, even the beasts and monsters only had their own, special physiology and body structure to make them special, truly, all of them could easily be classified as simple animals that had simply evolved to meet the harsh conditions of the desert.

'Good thing however… Even with the development of the oases, we would be at a disadvantage if beings that could not care less about the temperature showed up to attack…' indeed, as adapted as they may be, nothing could truly claim to be immune to the scorching light or searing heat, all feared it on some level.

Those that required moisture feared rising to the surface and expanding too much of what they had, and those that photosynthesised would generally only stick out the flower-like part out of the sand as their flesh was made easier to catch fire from being dried-up.

As such, the denizens didn't actually have home advantage for their home was awful even to them, this allowed the undead to expand without opposition so far, planting their camps and oases as they saw fit.

"Lord Ir'Houwl, the radius the scouts can traverse is now overlapping with the area where the ants have made their nest" one of her warriors informed "What shall we do about them?"

"For now, let us not attack them, I would like to know how they managed to create a nest when their only sand and no solid stone for them to carve through, tell the scouts to not engage any ants unless absolutely necessary, what we saw were probably only worked ants, they might have a few more castes that they could surprise us with, we'll run reconnaissance until a satisfactory amount of intel has been gathered" she said, motioning for the undead to go on their way.

'These ants are probably not the only colony in the desert either, but their presence probably indicates that there are no sapient life forms nearby, they wouldn't settle down next to a nest, or at least not without good reason.

Ir'Houwl walked over an area that had been covered in gravel, or soil from the main world, where some of her followers that weren't much warriors were busy digging a large hole into the ground, ladders descending into the depth as rope carrying buckets lifted sand out of the pit.

In spite of just how far they had dug, they still had yet to find anything other than sand or bits of glass that had presumably been covered up and sunk down with time, to prevent the walls from collapsing, they had brought a special gel of sorts that maintained the grains of sand together to form something of a solid surface.

Indeed, it was a wonder where the minions of the pale blue sun had found the materials to craft their weapons or even clothing.

The hammer, sword and equipment of the knight was still in the possession of the undead, so they had had ample time to analyse it, and frankly, there wasn't much that was special about, they were all regular resources that definitely wouldn't last if exposed to the current heat crashing down on the desert, it really could only be used by warriors that came out once the temperature dropped.

But it had to have been made somewhere and to serve a purpose, surely, it was hard to imagine that there was a forge to be found wherever those fellows ended up when not roaming the white desert…

The only thing of note about the equipment were the weapons with the depictions on either sides of them, if Ir'Houwl's knowledge of the ways of power wasn't too poor, then she would wager that they were a form of tales, which was closer to a way of learning than a way of power in itself, really.

In use mostly in what dealt in the holy, it was said that by creating a tale in a certain manner, one that read it and understood it on a deep level, could learn the skills and ability of the figures or beings that were told about in the tale.

Though, here it seemed more like it was used as a simple image to draw power from the depicted figure in question, which would be the pale blue sun, there was also a depiction of the sun currently hovering about with other suns around it, so perhaps they could also draw upon the power of this one.

All in all, it appeared like the hammer in of itself was nothing special, it just happened to be decorated by a tale that could serve as a conduit for power…