The wind that had blown through the valley was cold.
Not warm, with the warmth of life. But cold, with the burden of dominion, the oppressive silence that fell over the land like a mist. Clouds moved in low grays across the sky, obscuring the sun but never falling rain. The world, in this shape, was holding its breath—like the land itself knew it no longer belonged to it.
From a raised obsidian balcony carved with warding and binding runes of soul, Draegor, Absolute Ruler of the Deathborn Throne, surveyed his growing empire. The castle behind him pulsed with held power, thick veins of inert violet light traversing the dark stone like a sleeping monster's heartbeat.
He did not talk.
He just watched.
Below, the earth had begun to reform. What had been a lawless stretch of unchecked wilds, strewn with ruins and shattered bones of previous empires, was now shaping itself into something else. Something structured. Something alive. yet not alive.
A Realm Shaped in Death, Spiced With Life
Where skeletal laborers once wandered blindly over shifting ash and earth, now black stone roads paved with precision radiated outward from the citadel like veins. They were lined with rune-torches burning softly pulsing soulflames, lighting the night in unnerving blues and purples.
Along the crossroads stood watchtowers—spires of bone and metal conjoined through dark magic. In them, undead sentries stood in complete stillness, their eyes unbroken, unblinking, never weary or resting. These towers did not just watch. They listened.
But there was not all undead.
On the western flank of the valley, near to a small river which previously ran dry, a first village to be in the possession of Draegor had been reborn.
Duskglen, once a human town now rechristened in the Empire's tongue, had been rebuilt under careful eyes. Wooden homes had been replaced by stone and steel skeletons, imbued with fire-resistance and reinforcing magic. Doorways bore warding runes etched by bony scribes, offering protection and loyalty-bound ties to residents.
The residents, still flesh and blood, still in terror, lived and worked under Draegor's standard.
They tilled necrotic-enhanced soil that yielded strange but healthy crops. They built weapons from the materials that relentless undead diggers uncovered. Some had tried to flee, at first—but had been given a choice: serve and thrive. or disappear.
Now they stayed. Now they obeyed.
For in all its ominous beauty, Draegor's tyranny brought order. Monsters no longer prowled in the night to kill. Bandits were gone. Trade routes opened to remote human and demi-human settlements brave—or desperate enough—to seek out stability beneath the banner of the dark monarch.
It was fear that bowed them.
But peace that kept them bowed.
The Citadel Breathes
Within the walls of Draegor's fortress, life pulsed like whirring cogwork in some giant machine.
Albedo strode through the great hall, clipboard held firm in her grasp, silver armor faintly reflecting the violet light of the chandelier. She moved with a sense of mission, inspecting undead formation drills and reactor maintenance schedules beneath the throne room.
Cocytus, ever subdued but alert, trained his warriors in the subterranean arena—experiencing various configurations, adapting warfare methods on the ground and in the air.
Shalltear had been dispatched before to defend the farthest northmost outpost—largely because of curiosity rather than threat. No enemy, as yet. Only speculations. Silhouettes peering from afar.
Demiurge, of course, had grown increasingly interested in ruling. He oversaw the economic and social structures being laid down across Draegor's dominions, using captured merchants and former nobles as tools—or pawns, if he prefers to call them that.
And Draegor? He plotted.
The Hall of Silence
He strode up and down the Hall of Silence, a chamber filled with magical glass that shone like mirrors but reflected only what Draegor wanted to see.
Float maps uncovered areas below and beyond his domain. Reddings at the far peripheries were the territories of lower lords, tribesmen, slaver towns, and ancient ruins. He studied them without feeling a hint of urgency, but with purpose.
At the center of the room hung a model of his kingdom projected from above, showing every village, every watchtower, and every road. Slowly but irresistibly, it was expanding. Not through conquest—but gravity. Fear's power. Order's promise.
The world beyond him listened. Waited. Tested.
Let them watch, he said to himself.
Let them view the shape of control.
A Walk Among the Dead
Then, Draegor descended into the Miregarden—a once rotten mire in the lower level of the citadel that had been transformed into a necrotic sanctuary. Bones hung from twisted trees like fingers grasping, leaves black as night. His honor guard beneath his feet—the best of the Deathguard, clad in obsidian plate and swathed by soul-flames burning within their helms.
Here, he stalked beside the named dead.
Old enemies—strong warriors, mages, and lords—now his thralls through the process of assimilation. All retained pieces of memory and ability, but no will. He had bent them, and now they marched, quiet, waiting to have orders bestowed upon them once more.
One of them kneeled as Draegor passed by: a giant beastman once known as Varn the Mauler, now a general of undead shocktroops.
"You have not spoken in days," Draegor told him, his voice a whisper of thunder.
"I wait for your word, my liege," the creature's respectful response.
Content, Draegor passed on.
Peace—For Now
The citadel fell into twilight, its towers softly glowing as the final light left the sky. No bells tolled. No songs were sung. But the silence was its own music.
And Draegor once more stood on the balcony.
This, he believed, is what the world forgot.
Not war. Not chaos.
But the quiet before them.
He would let the stillness grow. Let rumors spread of a land that moved with no compassion, but did not burn nor pillage. Let kingdoms speculate.
Then.
When they arrived to question or intimidate.
They would find that silence speaks loudest of all.