People often say that undeads are a mockery of life or a blasphemy against life.
They are wrong.
Undeads are a mockery of, and a blasphemy against, death. By denying death, they block the cycle and interrupt the recycling of energy over which all existence hangs.
That's why creating undeads is the highest form of sin within Ephemerys' religion. Unforgivable when made with intention by necromancers. Most of the time, though, they just appear spontaneously anywhere with an abundance of corpses and mana.
The elven races all have a high affinity for mana and are attracted to it, so it's little wonder that the dark elves would build their capital in the place with the highest mana density of all the Underdark.
Thalum Aenoth, the Sanctuary of Silence, used to be a glorious and prosperous city, home to half a million souls at its apogee, according to the lore of the game.
"And this is what became of it… What a shame."
Inside the ruins, the air was still as if time itself had stopped. Rubble stood where once proud spirehouses reached the cave ceilings. No living being dared to enter the place, not even mosses or fungi.
Cecilia wandered alone in the old avenue that led from the north gate to the old palace. She knew that after the palace there was a staircase that led to the second floor of the city, where the middle class used to live.
She still hadn't walked fifteen meters when the first skeleton attacked. It was wearing the armor and weapons of a knight.
"Radiant Aura."
She activated a technique that would keep constantly turning undead in a radius of ten meters around her.
The skeleton crumbled to dust, with all the equipment it was carrying.
"May your soul find solace and return to the cycle."
Cecilia muttered her prayers as she kept walking, without faltering even once.
Few undead dared to approach her while she reached for the palace, and the ones who did had the same fate as soon as they entered the radius of her technique. The others fled on sight, terrified.
"Tsk. This thing drains too much MP, but without it I would be swarmed by those pesky little guys. But I wonder what I would find if I entered the palace…
There was some lore in the game, but it was a game. I remember there being a library, yet we were able to pick only two or three books."
In-game books, because of technical limitations, are actually very small, often having only one or two pages worth of content. Cecilia had already found books in the capital that were there in the game, but in this world those were complete three-hundred-page tomes.
"Let's see… Hm, I have enough inventory space, and I'm still not nearly encumbered. I could go up there and see if I find anything interesting."
The selling point of Hyperborea was that the players were the ones to create the world and lore, but that mostly applied to the world during game time. That world wasn't an empty page; it already had a lot of lore about things that happened before.
And those lores were the domain of the devs. At max, they sold some customization packs from time to time, and those customizations had several constraints on them.
"There was that new race in the inn, and new races were off-limits for customization; the playable races were set in stone, as was their lore. This city's lore was also set in stone, though we had several events here…
I wonder what else has changed from the time of the game. I bet that there are very interesting lore crumbs to be found in there. The reason for this nation's downfall still mystifies me."
She was already in the central plaza in front of the palace, walking towards the street at the side of the palace, with the goal of going around it. The moment she changed her steps to go towards the palace gates, something changed around her.
She felt a cold shiver running down her spine as the undead that had been avoiding her screamed in anger against her. They were all easy to deal with, but she somehow felt that there was something else being roused.
"Uh, oh…"
She hesitated for a moment, then pressed forward.
((It seems that someone doesn't want me to learn whatever there is to be learned inside that place…))
There's nothing that piques someone's curiosity as well as trying to hide information from them.
She walked towards the gate and opened it with one hand, while ready to blast a spell towards whatever came to block her.
The entry hall of the palace was empty, exactly as she remembered from the game. Except for the few dozen skeletons and lesser wraiths who jumped at her in a frenzy, only to be turned into dust by her Radiant Aura.
She entered the place and then began to walk the corridors, halls, and rooms of the palace. It looked like in the game, just bigger. The main areas were the same, but there were a lot more rooms and doors to explore.
The other main difference was that that she found several legible documents and journals from the era when the palace was lived in.
She put it all into her inventory without a second look. Those were ledgers, minutes, memos, and other documents that would usually be in government offices.
Soon, she arrived at the place where she wanted to get to. There hadn't been any substantial opposition, thanks to her technique, but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else watching her.
The library was also almost exactly the same as in the game, with some huge differences. Those were the quantity of actual books, the fact that she could just pick anything she could see and then read whatever was in it.
"This is simply fascinating… Ooohhhh, so many treatises on magic! And historyyyyy! Whoa, is this about the royal family? Royal gossip????? Gimme gimme gimmmeeeee!!!"
She started walking around in a daze, completely forgetting the undead around her and the more somber threat that she sensed was watching from the shadows. She simply went around, putting everything that caught her eye into her inventory.
After some time, she noticed that there was another section of the library, behind a door.
She entered it and the feeling of threat increased. Someone, or something, wasn't happy about her presence there.
"Hm…? This looks like it was heavily guarded back then. But wait, why are most of them about necromancy? Am I just in a… oh, I see. This is a restricted area, with forbidden books."
She left the necromancy treaties but took the other ones, then continued looking for anything that could tell more about the reasons why the kingdom fell.
((Oh? There's a secret passage behind this shelf. I feel that I would be able to learn more about this place if I go there… But the oppressive presence I feel comes from in there. I… no, it's not the time for this. I promised Aelindra.))
She resisted the urge to keep exploring and left. The moment she went out of the restricted area, she felt like the air around her had become less tense.
"I see… You are trying to protect something there. Or are you just afraid that someone else take those books and learn how to make more of you? It's okay; I have no interest in necromancy anyway."
She headed towards the exit, and the undead ceased to disturb her until she finally left the city.
:::
In a forest far away, on the surface, Mutt was in his daily hunting routine.
The meat that Cecilia had provided would still last some time, but he wasn't one to slack just because of that.
But, today, something felt off. There weren't any animals around. No trails, no sounds, nothing. Birds, game, insects… all were gone.
Instead, the only beings he found were monsters. Some very dangerous ones, even. So he just turned tail and ran away as fast as possible.
((I need to notify the mayor. There's a big crisis coming. It will be a danger for the whole village if those monsters decide to attack us.))