Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

At a glance, nothing seemed wrong with Muho Chitai, just another city amidst the coloured wilderness, peaceful and beautiful, yet harbouring countless fierce combatants aiming to become renowned with their skills and capabilities.

However, it didn't take long for Loimos to realise that the so-called guards patrolling the streets were also bill collectors and regularly intimidated the citizens, the fact that an entire street was home to nothing but shady deals and women offering coitus was also a good indication that this place did not have an actual official figure in charge.

In fact, said street saw the most passage and even had its own entrance, which wasn't even hidden, everything was in plain sight.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Loimos was already certain that regular guards wouldn't have allowed him through willy nilly considering that he looked like he had fought a pack of lions, but those thugs would immediately search problems and probably try to rob him, they weren't pleasant to actual travellers even when they came specifically to indulge in the various illegal services they had to offer.

Moreover, despite his incessant spying, the undead was unable of detecting where the crypt even was, the ruin was certainly controlled by the criminals as well, and the people didn't like to speak of them, even behind closed doors, even the underlings they used in place of the guards kept their lips sealed about anything other than the least interesting of things.

Although mild-mannered and clearly enjoying their power over the populace caught in the schemes of criminality, the guards actually patrolled every inch of the city every day, the night watch wasn't shabby either, so instead of trying the usual way and attempting to sneak inside whole, Loimos detached his left hand and sent it on a mission.

Waiting for night to come, Loimos's limb could easily crawl right through the main entrance, the area was so unproblematic that it wasn't sealed off, under the mantle of darkness and thanks to being so small, the hand was able of sneaking past the guards, although more than one of them definitely felt like they had heard something, but faced with the lack of concrete proof, they convinced themselves that it was nothing.

Using rot to climb up walls, the skeletal hand listened in on many more conversations, but those bore nothing of substances, Loimos was interested on inspecting the few building that he hadn't been able to sense anything from, clearly, special measures had been put in place to prevent anyone from peeping and hearing things that they shouldn't. Continue your adventure with empire

As such, the undead definitely needed to hear what was going on in there, for them to ensure that those were made soundproof and not the brothels, there had to be some important matters discussed by the people in charge, whilst well guarded and protected against people, the safety measures hadn't been erected with a disembodied hand in mind, burrowing itself underneath the foundations, the limb scuttling around, searching for a gap that could possibly lead inside.

The flooring wasn't made with wooden floorboards that would easily shift around due to humidity and heat, the floor here was made from woven straws, meaning that Loimos couldn't easily dig a hole using his ability to rot objects, or use the corrosive nature of his blighted blood, but doing so would leave a clear trace of invasion, unless he was able of finding a spot that wasn't within the sight of occupants, such as underneath or behind a piece of furniture.

He could feel subtle vibrations from people walking above him from times to times, despite this, his synesthesia wasn't working properly, despite sensing them through touch, he was unable to get a clear sight of the people or any other of the aspects about them, something was muddling his senses, and it wasn't the materials the building was constructed with.

Probing around the lengthy underside of the straw floor with great precaution to not leave even a single milimeter of space unchecked, the undead ended up finding a slight weakness in a corner, pushing up against it, the disembodied hand finally managed to squeeze through the slight gap that was created, the undead found himself in a dusty room filled to the brim with miscellaneous objects, weapons and sealed containers.

Cobwebs were accumulating on the ceiling, only a small portion, which wasn't crowded with the aforementioned objects of the room, seemed to see some passage, for some reasons, the majority of the stocks in here weren't seeing any use.

Now that he was inside, Loimos could sense things around much more easily, although certain rooms remained completely off-limit, remaining hidden for a few days, there was clearly regular passage of an important figure, constantly accompanied by many guards whose countenance had nothing to do with that of the regular guards, said important character never said anything, but some of the guards positioned around the mansion-like habitation were a bit more talkative.

Lady Syklon was her name, and from the looks of it, she was the only leading figure of this whole criminal affair, everyone else that seemed to be talked about were nothing more than arms used to carry out her orders, gathering what he could from his position, he then waited until silence befell the manor, which actually meant that it was day, for the nights were always loud and filled by the chatter of many people, many more people that should be able of fitting in the building.

Latching on the door handle, he twisted the door open, immediately attracting the attention of a nearby guard, who quickly positioned himself right in front of the door, but still a good distance from the inside, his hand resting on the blade at his hilt, most certainly preparing to unleash one of the rapid unsheathing art Tochi was most prominently known for.

Seeing no one inside, sensing nothing off, the guard entered the room, ready to strike down, but there was nothing.

"Huh, what is wrong with this?" he nudged the door, turning the handle to check if the thing was broken, not noticing the limb crawling up right above his head and into the corridor.

Loimos's senses had felt off ever since he had entered this place, and it was rather obvious why now, the inside was many times larger than the outside suggested, countless rooms and a main room where people were dancing and partaking in various acts of debauchery immediately came into view.

Lady Syklon was certainly more wealthy and resourceful than Loimos had first assumed.