You wake face down in the muck. It is hard to breathe. Blood and earth conspire to trap you in their clammy embrace, but despite the burning agony in your side and the dwindling strength in your limbs you manage to flip yourself onto your side. The rust colored sky matches the stained field below, like the heavens themselves bled too.
The battlefield is still, save for the terrible squawking of hungry crows, but you can’t stop hearing the cries of the fallen in your mind. So many gone. Tears trickle down your face, but whether they are for Prince Talysen or yourself you do not know. Everything smells like copper.
Suddenly, you hear a rustling and the flap of hundreds of angry wings disturbed from their meal. A bony hand grips your shoulder and flips you onto your back. You recoil, your already shallow breath catching in your throat as you catch the glint of Diamonds where eyes should be. Something glimmers in those depths, and your skin crawls with the sensation that the stones are watching you. With as much bile and hatred as you can muster, you choke out one word, “Necrotic.”
Madam Anana stares down at you, head cocked to the side as if she were listening to something. Her feathered collar and tattered cloak are somehow spotless, as if she were somehow standing above the carnage all around her. For a moment, there was silence. Then Anana spoke, her words echoing slightly as if a dozen voices lived within, all clamoring to get out.“We knew the shin’hare were up to something when they gave us your prince. Bloodshed. Chaos. War.”
Her face twists slightly as she looks down at you, her eyes burning like twin stars in the face of a disapproving grandmother.“But war was an acceptable price to pay, Sleeper. What were you thinking, burning your dead? Foolish. Selfish. Wasteful.”
With each word her voice grows louder, hands clenched and trembling at her sides. “You are like children, breaking your toys because you do not want to share. All that knowledge, all those Orphaned shards without a home because of your stubborn pride. We need your shells, Sleeper. If you will not gift them to us after you are done with them, we have no choice. We will take them by force.”
A crow lands on her staff, breaking her tirade. She looks up at the human finger clutched in its beak, and then out at the blood-soaked battlefield.“This was not my first choice,” she whispers. “But even if these scars go deeper than we intended, we will fulfill our purpose.”
Her eyes flash as her thin hands go to a pouch at her waist.You feel your vision dim as Anana leans over you, her dry breath in your ear.“Shh… sleep, young one. Soon you too will hear the Chant. Awaken, and this will all be like a bad dream.
*********
It’s a new year and a new expansion! We are pleased to announce that our Sixth Set is titled Scars of War.
With Scars of War, HEX’s story focuses on the raging war which started in Herofall and has been shaping the face of Entrath itself. Alliances form and break as the Ardent and Underworld struggle to gain the upper hand, but nobody will escape unscathed.
That’s all for now! Don’t forget to keep an eye out here and on social media as we kick off this exciting release.