Rules For The Bled

The Osprey's Wake resumed its course once the Widow's Folly disappeared into the horizon, and by the next day, the coast of Dominion appeared. A dark, jagged smear rising out of the sea mist.

Docking was out of the question. The official harbors of Dominion were no place for Rusk's ship, not with the kind of "uncatalogued" cargo she carried in her hold. The captain, ever pragmatic, made the decision just before dawn, they would weigh anchor offshore, and her crew would ferry Yvain's group to land in skiffs.

The sun had barely breached the clouds when the small rowboats pushed off from the Wake, oars slicing through the heavy water. The fog clung low, draping the sea like wet cloth, and the land loomed ever closer, black cliffs and coarse, stone beaches giving way to damp soil that looked rich yet unwelcoming.

When they finally stepped onto Dominion's shore, it felt like setting foot on something that hadn't wanted to be touched.

The earth was dark, nearly black, slick and wet beneath their boots. It wasn't the sterile dead of the Arkenian wastes, nor the crystalized stillness of the Far-End glaciers. This was something else entirely. It was fertile, technically, but the kind of fertility that grew rot and vine-choked ruins. The few trees that jutted up from the soil were twisted, their bark covered in strange lichens, their roots visibly curling aboveground like veins seeking the surface. Their branches reached not for the sun, but away from it, as if recoiling from light.

"This place…" Mars murmured, eyes scanning the gnarled forest that bordered the coastal path. "It's not right."

Yvain didn't respond immediately. He knelt, fingers brushing the dirt. The texture was rich, damp. But very oddly cold.

He stood and adjusted his cloak. "Necropolis isn't far inland, but the road will be slow."

Celeste was beside him, her boots crunching on the salt-wet stones. "How slow?"

"We'll need to walk for the better part of a day."

Behind them, Mars was helping Adeline off the boat, her face pale and drawn. She was still weary from the sea crossing, less from sickness now than exhaustion.

"I've got her," Mars said, looping an arm around her waist. "You two go on ahead. I'll keep pace."

Yvain gave a nod and began forward, Celeste falling into step beside him. The air was dense here, not hot, but thick, saturated with the smell of moss and iron and something faintly metallic, like blood on old stone.

Above, the sky had dulled to a deep gray, clouds hanging low, heavy with the threat of rain. The occasional distant caw of a carrion bird punctuated the silence, but otherwise, Dominion was quiet.

"Why Necropolis?" Celeste asked, her voice breaking the hush that had settled over the group as they made their way inland.

Yvain didn't look at her when he answered. "It's the first city on the Crossroad," he said, the words slipping out with mechanical ease. "And… my necromancy needs work."

Celeste gave a soft grunt of acknowledgment, but her eyes stayed on him a moment longer, searching his profile as they walked side by side.

The Crossroad. It was not a not just a road, but a vast arterial trade network, older than many of the nations it passed through. It wove its way through the known world, from Dominion's wet and haunted coasts, through the endless green of the Verdance, down into the burning sands of Arken.

And along that path stood four cities, each an axis upon which history turned.

Necropolis had once served as the capital of Malkuth at the end of the fourth age, albeit for a short while.

He had chosen Necropolis because it was first along the path, but also because necromancy was the discipline in which he was weakest.

Celeste gave a slow nod. "So it's Necropolis, then Babel, Kantos, and Yi. And after you're done?"

Yvain was quiet for a long beat before answering. "I don't know," he said honestly.

Celeste gave a small scoff, more amused than annoyed. "Right," she muttered. But there was no edge in her voice, only understanding.

They walked on in silence after that, the land rising and falling around them in shallow hills. Mars had fallen behind again, wearied by the terrain and the endless, clinging humidity. Adeline, still recovering from the voyage, leaned heavily on him, her steps faltering more often now.

Eventually, Mars gave a grunt and stopped. "I can't carry her any farther," he admitted, gently easing Adeline down onto a mossy stone along the trail.

Yvain turned without a word and walked back. With a nod of thanks to Mars, he moved to Adeline's side and helped her up, lifting her weight onto his back with more care than effort.

"You good?" he asked, his voice low as they resumed their pace.

Adeline managed a breathless chuckle. "I've been better."

She shifted slightly, head resting against his shoulder. "I should be asking you that."

Yvain didn't respond right away. The forest around them was quiet save for the buzz of distant insects and the wet crunch of their boots on black soil. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and measured. "I am."

Adeline said nothing more, but she squeezed his shoulder lightly, as if in silent agreement. And the four of them walked on toward Necropolis.

The city was a marvel, and a mausoleum.

From the final ridge before descent, they saw it: Necropolis, the Buried City, sprawled across the land like a wound that refused to close. Towers carved from volcanic obsidian rose like broken teeth from a blackened earth, while monumental mausoleums clustered along ridges and terraces, stacked and sunken into each other like petrified waves.

Necropolis had not been born like other cities. It had begun as a necropolis in the truest sense, an eternal resting ground for kings.

Specifically, for the Dehmohseni kings, who, in their pride, refused to die like ordinary men. Burial or cremation were rituals for the commonfolk. For a Dehmohseni scion, death was not the end, but a second coronation, and one that demanded pageantry.

Their tombs were temples. Their sarcophagi, thrones. And their retainers were often buried, or slaughtered, alive to accompany them.

Over generations, the tombs multiplied, swollen with honorifics, carved in scripts now forgotten. Worshippers followed the dead, as did artisans and architects, and slowly, the tombs grew into cathedrals, the cathedrals into districts. A living city metastasized atop a kingdom of the dead.

And it was here, centuries ago, that Indra Dehmohseni and his heretic court sought to slay death. Which sounded laughable, had they not nearly succeeded.

Even now, Necropolis remained a place where life and death negotiated uneasy truces. The city was not merely old, it persisted. It was dead, undead, and still dying all at once. No birds sang overhead. No trees grew inside its walls.

The black stone from which the city was hewn seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, casting even midday into something resembling dusk. And the gates, vast, and ribbed, loomed like the jaws of a waiting leviathan.

They passed through.

Inside, the air was heavy with rot, thick and cloying, as if centuries of decay had permeated the stone itself. Mars gagged audibly, holding a perfumed kerchief to his nose. "Is turning back an option?" he asked, eyes wide as he surveyed the crowd.

The streets of Necropolis teemed with movement, but not quite with life. Some of the figures shuffling past them were recognizably human, grief-worn pilgrims, gray-robed apprentices, and necromantic scholars draped in bone-beaded sashes. But others were not. Many were not.

The undead walked here freely. Some were crude husks, little more than animated cadavers dragged along by invisible compulsions. Others were disturbingly lucid, sentient ghouls with stitched skin and flickering lights behind hollow eyes.

A carriage clattered past, pulled by six skinny thralls harnessed with iron and leather. Inside the carriage, a woman with a caked face adjusted the parasol above her veiled head.

Mars flinched.

"You don't have to come," Celeste said flatly, without looking at him.

He gave a nervous laugh. "I think we're a bit past that option, don't you?"

Yvain moved ahead of them all, his gaze sweeping the horizon of tomb-spires and fog-choked streets. And as he looked upon it, a strange thought nestled itself in the back of his mind, this place, in all its death and grandeur, was technically his.

By Dehmohseni tradition, crown princes were bestowed with ceremonial dominions, fiefs to signify their authority and prepare them for rule. And none bore more weight than Necropolis. To be styled Prince of Necropolis was not simply honorific; it was a declaration of lineage and burden.

But of course, the title was meaningless now.

The throne of the Dehmohseni had shattered in fire and rebellion generations ago. The power of the dead city had not passed to any single heir, but fractured and scattered like bone under a warhammer. Necropolis was sovereign only to itself, and what power remained was partitioned across a shifting patchwork of necromancer guilds, embalmer cabals, bonewright syndicates, and warlocks-for-hire.

There was no king here, no council, no rule of law. Influence was measured in souls and corpse-chits, loyalty bought with legions of undead laborers and rights to the deeper crypt-vaults. Necropolis exported one thing above all else, death made useful. Undead thralls, embalmed soldiers, spectral messengers, bone constructs of all types and craft. For kingdoms that needed cheap, obedient labor, or terrifying auxiliaries in war, Necropolis was a necessary evil.

And Yvain? He was a footnote now. A ghost of an old title, walking the streets of a realm that had moved on without him.

Still, as he stood before the city's ever-burning braziers, watching a skeletal porter haul crates of soul-infused ore across the road, he couldn't help but feel something stir beneath his skin.

A welcoming.