text: [Themes: grimdark fantasy, serious]
  
  Despite your fears, you've always had a sense of duty and responsibility, something that probably won't ever completely go away due to how you grew up. You're not running away, you did join to help provide for your family after all.
  
  Before your company packs up and leaves Retlad, you write a quick letter to your family and hand it off to a messenger. Many of the Retlad citizens aren't too pleased to see you leave, but they don't really have any say in the matter, just like you don't. There isn't much talking on the trip, though, everyone is pretty silent. Wessel however is doing enough for everyone.
  
  "I can't believe something like this happened! Nuro was a beacon of enlightenment and well prepared for situations like this! I...can't believe this didn't occur without some sort of demonic influence. I'll bet that Mr. Demar had something to do with this! I remember taking his class and he was always a creepy bastard. Before I could graduate I had to take his conjuration 101 class and he didn't like me because I had made several logical arguments to as why that branch of magic should be outlawed altogether. And it's obvious by what happened recently that I was right! Nevertheless I did all the required work in the class and I still got a B! Way to fuck up my perfect record! I get the same grade as some bumbling idiot who summoned up a Nurk Beast that he lost control over and bit off someone's hand! Where is the fucking justice?"
  
  Once again, Wessel has turned the topic to focus on himself. Happily Captain Vahlat tells him to shut the fuck up.
  
  You'll be near Nuro soon and your company makes camp for the night. While all of you are on edge from what will come tomorrow, someone finally says something.
  
  "Hey farmboy, play us a song on that thing."
  "...what did you want to hear?" you ask, not expecting to be called to play under these circumstances. In fact it just occurred to you that you've never played for anyone in your company! You assume that they all knew that you did, but they just were never interested enough to stick around and listen to you before.
  
  "I dunno, play whatever it was you used to play for the Retlad citizens...it seemed to make them happy."
  
  You pull out your lute and take a deep breath and start playing. At first you're just concentrating on the strings and making sure you don't mess anything up, but when you look up, you can see that everyone in the camp is listening intently to your music, even Wessel. Tensions seem to have decreased. It's like a wave of calmness has struck the camp. You never believed your playing could have that much of an effect on people. Eventually the song ends and the Captain tells everyone who isn't on watch to get some sleep. He then takes you aside.
  
  "Heard your playing...damn shame that you're here. You really should be doing that instead." Valhlat remarks.
  "I know."
  "Hm. I know you joined mainly to help support your family."
  "Yeah, I just hope I get to see them again."
  "Bah, don't start talking like that. I've seen you with a bow, you pluck that thing even better than that lute. You've been in battle before and survived, I see you doing it again."
  "I sure hope so, its just I dunno...the undead...I've heard stories."
  "Yeah, everyone's heard the stories, but stories tend to be exaggerated. Now I dunno about what happened centuries ago, since I wasn't there, but I HAVE fought the undead before. One of my first assignments was taking care of some minor undead incursion in a little village. Some asshole stumbled upon an ancient scroll and started reading the goddamn words on it out loud. They look a lot worse than they actually are. Most of the time they're incredibly slow, and easily dispatched. Its mainly a psychological advantage from all the stories people have told about them that cause this quaking fear in most folks."
  "Well I suppose, but what about the necromancers?"
  "Feh, they're wizards and just like all the rest their arrogance is their undoing. Most of these so-called necromancers are half-assed ones that get killed by their own undead troops. Anyway, get to sleep; you want to be fully alert for tomorrow's battle. It still won't be a walk in the park, but it's not going to be a death sentence."
  
  You take the Captain's words into consideration, but in the back of your mind before you go to sleep, you're thinking "But they can't be that half-assed, they successfully took over Nuro..."
  
  The next day arrives and you finish your trip to Nuro and that's when you see the city for the first time. You always wanted to visit it after hearing about it from Wessel, but even from this distance it doesn't look like anything he described.
  
  "By the gods...what..." Wessel slowly whispers.
  
  The stench of death is thick in the air. You see thousands of bodies outside the city gates and they aren't lying down either. They aren't advancing either though. There just standing there like...well zombies.
  
  Your company isn't the only one here though, there are a few others awaiting orders. You see one from the Brot Kingdom and another from the Azi Republic. Thankfully there's another Zalan one as well to boost your numbers.
  
  The respective captains acknowledge each other's presence, a short meeting is made and then the inevitable comes. The attack.
  
  At first things seem to go well. All ranged troops are ordered to fire upon the enemy who are still just standing there. Arrows pierce zombie brains, gunshots destroy skeleton bones, spells blast at walls and it seems very easy.
  
  Then from the battlements of Nuro a few figures begin casting a few offensive spells of their own. It's at this point a charge is made towards the city.
  
  "When you get in range aim for the fucking wizards! Don't fear these rotting meat sacks! We're the fucking Zalan army! We don't lose!" Captain Valhlat shouts.
  
  Fine words, but they do little to uplift your impending sense of doom. It doesn't help that the sky goes completely dark while you're marching towards a bunch of undead and at the same time hoping you don't get hit by a wizard's spell. In the distance you briefly see a cleric from the Azi Republic riding a horse by himself. He appears to be calling upon some sort of holy might from whatever god he worships since a blue protective sphere appears around him. The next moment he's hit by a black ray that goes straight through the sphere and his life is gone. Not even his god could protect him.
  
  As you get closer, you see that the undead soldiers still haven't moved, but there are significantly less of them as they continue to fall from ranged attacks. However, now other undead pop up on the walls of Nuro holding bows of their own.
  
  "SHIELDS!" Captain Valhlat shouts.
  
  More of your side falls and now you're so close you can smell the death in the air. The undead troops are now finally moving to do battle with your side. You attempt to target the robed figures on the battlements, but of course it's very difficult in all this chaos and your fear.
  
  You mostly only get the undead archers. Wessel is a little more successful is downing an enemy wizard.
  
  "Ha ha! Don't you realize I graduated top of my class?!" you hear him shout.
  
  The gates of Nuro are being broken down and despite the horror you've already seen, this battle still seems hopeful.
  
  Then a black cloaked hooded figure sudden appears on the battlements. You see him merely raise his arms briefly and that's when you get the very real feeling that hope is lost.
  
  Ghostly spirits come through the walls of Nuro making worse shrieks than when you fought the Quillars. At least they were living creatures. These drain lives at but a touch and there isn't enough magic to fight the incorporeal creatures properly. You see the Brot Kingdom's company break and run, but unfortunately for them and you, your possible retreat has been blocked. All the soldiers on your side that fell have now suddenly been raised, the undead soldiers that were killed have been raised as well. You're fighting in the front, from behind and in some cases from within. It's chaos.
  
  "Shit, I'm going to die today..." you whisper to yourself.
  
  Captain Valhlat is knee deep in the dead, but this figure who's apparently changed the tide of battle hasn't escaped his attention. He points to the figure and barks orders at the top of his lungs.
  
  > run away
  There's undead all around you, fear coursing through your body and all you can think of is escape. You see a few others following orders, but their shots do nothing. Apparently the Necromancer has protected himself behind a more powerful magic shield than the cleric you saw die had. Even Wessel's spell dissipates before it.
  
  You ignore your orders, you ignore your fellow soldiers, you ignore the attack on Nuro, and you run and you're not a bit ashamed to put your survival first.
  
  The chaos of the fighting is bewildering and you don't really pay attention to what direction you're heading, you're just making a beeline to any destination not completely filled with zombies, ghosts, and skeletons. You look back, only to see more death. The hooded figure on top of the battlements calls down some sort of death cloud that begins to envelop the area you were previously in. The screams of the distant victims are horrible.
  
  You feel like you're living a nightmare as you constantly bump into corpses, both moving and unmoving. Defensive chops with your sword do nothing to kill the unnatural creatures and only temporarily push them out of your way. It is only by sheer luck that you get away without getting killed.
  
  You run further, leaving the carnage behind. You look back again to see if anything is in pursuit, but nothing is to your relief. Still, you're not comfortable and you continue to distance yourself until you can run no further and you must stop to rest.
  
  It is at this point, you wonder what you're going to do. You wonder if going back to report to the nearest Zalan commander would be wise. Will they punish you for running away? The situation was hopeless, surely they couldn't...could they? And even if they don't, then what? Send you back in? That's definitely not appealing given what you've seen.
  
  At this point you're really regretting your decision to join the army. You wish you could just leave. You want to go home.
  
  Going AWOL back in Retlad wasn't really an option; you would've been hunted down. But now? You probably would be listed as a casualty. You could theoretically disappear and attempt to live anonymously and do what you wanted to do in the first place. Just travel and play. Your family would even be compensated for your death, but still...you'd hate to put them through the grief of it, if it isn't true.
  
  Before you ponder your future options any further, you suddenly feel a pain in your side...you look down and see that you're bleeding. Apparently you were stabbed and didn't even realize it due to the adrenaline. You're feeling the pain now though and you attempt to stop the bleeding as much as you can.
  
  Regardless of what you're going to do in the future, right now you have to find civilization to at least get fixed up. The problem is that you don't know where the hell you are. You look around for some possible landmarks, but you're not seeing anything familiar. Lacking any other ideas, you start walking in the general direction of where you think the Zalan Empire is located.
  
  You walk for a few hours and the pain is getting worse. You start thinking that you might not get the chance to worry anymore about your potential future, but a farm house in the distance gives you a little hope and you press on.
  
  You get close to the front porch and that's when you stop. The front door is broken off its hinges and a few windows are also broken. You also notice a leg lying in the grass near you. Worse, whatever did this is apparently still around judging by the loud voices you're hearing from inside.
  
  "Ha ha! Human women are such squealers! Not as much fun as elven women though!"
  "Oh that's real original. Why is everyone always got such a fucking hard on for elven women? Too damn fragile if you ask me."
  "Go fucking rape a troll girl then."
  "Huh. Easier said than done my unimaginative friend. I tried that once and almost got married."
  "HAHAHAHA! See I told you this would be more fun than following Velzix...hey you smell that?"
  "Yes, I did sense the smell of fresh human blood in the air. Do you suppose we missed one?"
  "Only one way to find out!"
  
  At this point you start to back away as quickly as you can. You can't even run due to the pain, but you try your best. Your best isn't good enough though, as the dwellers of the farmhouse have exited and seen you.
  
  And as with everything that's been fucked up today, the ones that just exited the farmhouse happen to be demons. One is a bigger brutish looking sort, while the other is smaller yet definitely still more muscular than you.
  
  "Well what do we have here? Wounded meat? I say he gets to that rock before you can catch him and pull out his heart."
  "Hah! I'll take that bet!"
  
  The bigger one starts to walk towards you, but will undoubtedly quicken his pace soon.
  
  > try to outrun the demon
  Fear griping your heart, you struggle and push yourself to run as fast as you can in your condition.
  
  Soon something else is gripping your heart.
  
  You look down at your chest and see your bloody still beating heart outside of where it is normally supposed to be. The demon fist holding it squeezes your heart a bit first before crushing it completely before your eyes. You die soon afterwards.
  
  "Hah! I told you I could reach him before he got to the rock!" the demon laughs as he lets his arm slide out of your dead slumping body.