38 The North

Farsian was rooted in place for a moment when he came to his senses. He was looking around not seeing anything worth mentioning except for a tavern and a few frozen corpses that the snow had buried underneath. At the looks of it this seemed to be something normal to the villager as no one took special notice of the people that were unmoving in the snow storm. Farsian then decided to go into the tavern and find some place to stay at maybe even some information about the place that he would soon rule over.

"What can I bring you?" The barkeeper said to Farsian as he entered the tavern.

There weren't many other guests. No one would go out in a snowstorm to drink some beer. Well at least not many, there were about 15 other people in the bar.

"I want a place to sleep at and some beer if possible." Farsian took out some coins and placed them on the table. The amount of money that he had was unimaginable, if he wanted he could probably just buy the whole place and be done with the mission. The people at the academy probably didn't think someone would have that much money when they send them on a mission.

The barkeeper saw the coins and immediately swooped them up into his pocked. Farsian watched with bemusement as the barkeeper bit into the coin to verify its credibility. After that he turned around and gave Farsian a key to one of the rooms.

"Room number 9 the one on the second floor."

…

Phoebe was a very lucky person. Although many people saw her as an unlucky person because she was the only survivor in a fire where her whole family died. But she never thought like that, because she tested her luck multiple times. She would often play cards or dice with the other people here at the tavern and never once did she lose without purpose, usually when she lost it was to keep her opponent playing with her, after all she would be pretty lonely when no one would come to play with her. Today she managed to steal the place next to the fireplace so that she could sleep in the warmth, the owner of the tavern was a benevolent man that saw her as something similar as his child. He was a good friend of the family back then but even he had his difficulties living out here, especially now that the war had arrived and lesser customers came to visit him. Most of the young population had been drafted for the war effort, they were fighting at the front with the neighboring kingdom. Only wealthy merchants could pay the price to keep their heirs at home, everyone else including the poorer of the nobles were drafted for war. War never changed all this time, he had seen many wars but every war had ended in the same way, people crying for their lost ones and mentally scarred soldiers that came back and couldn't adopt to the new life. War was something that he wished would not exist, nevertheless he knew of the necessity that was to protect his home against the barbarians that life even further in the north. Once a year they would start raiding the kingdom for food and other life necessity's.

When Phoebe was about to fall asleep a young man started walking in, he didn't wear anything too fancy but could easily pay the fee for a month of rest up front, he even got the best room in the entire tavern. She was instantly awakened and could not stop thinking about all the wealth that she could win from him. She decided to try her luck once more as soon as the next day arrived, she would challenge him to a play of cards.

With that thought in mind she delved into sleep only awakening at the next morning to the cries of a woman that had her child stolen from her.

...

"What a rukus, who is making all this noise?!" A guard shouted out loud as he heard the screams.

when he turned into the alley all he saw was a mess of blood and gore, and a monster.

"Wha-No this is impossible!" He screamed as he saw the zombey devour the flesh of the innocent mother and her child, shortly after both of them stopped moving only to stand up once more.

When the guard saw this happening he turned around and fled.

But before he could even get 10 meters away he was allready captured, a hand snaked out of a small snow mound and grabbed his ankle causing him to fall.

"Noooo! Stay away from me!" He screamed as he slowly got eaten. A woman who was standing about 15 meters away suddenly screamed when she saw this, causing the other guards in the area to finally sound the alarm.

"Enemy attack! Everyone stay inside and lock your doors!" A guard shouted from one of the alarm towers, while simultaniously ringing the bell next to him.

Soon the whole town was stirred, everyone fled in panik. Some managed to close their doors only to have their windows broken in, the invaders didn't fear death nor did they feel any pain all they feelt was hunger for fresh flesh.

Farsian was in his room enyoing some of his rations that he had brought with him, they weren't much and wouldn't last him long but for the moment they were more than enough. When he heard the screams he didn't think much of it, maybe someone had found one of their lost ones in the snow. Now that the snow storm had ended many people would wander the streets in search of their loved ones, it was normal for them to at least want to bury their dead bodys. He didn't even think about the possibility of an attack or something similar to that, why would someone attack such a remote place?

As Farsian wondered what could have caused these screams he slowly went out of bed and began to change, he wasn't even finished as someone or rather something stumbled in his room.

"Huh? So that was the reason..." Farsian couldn't help but mutter as he saw the walking half rotting chewed up corpse walk into his room.

"A vampire? Well what ever we have a mission to fullfill!" The corpse said before it plunged itself onto Farsian. A talking walking corpse was not something one would see everyday but it wasn't something terribly rare either. Usually corpses would regain their inteligence after consuming a few dozen humans, thats also when they would become slower. For a corpse it was either do or die, they would decay over time and only the addition of new power could let them live a little longer so the best way to kill them was not to get eaten by one.

"You must be one of the leaders, well you are pretty unlucky to stumble into my room. I wish you more luck in the afterlife!" Farsian said as he easely grabbed the corpse by the throat and tried to crush its throat. But because it was allready an somewhat older corpse it was much stronger than the average corpse, it struggled and desperately tried to escape the grasp of this terrifying vampire.

Farsian also couldn't establish a firm grip because the flesh of the corpse would randomly squirm about and sometimes even come off.

After trying really hard the corpse somehow managed to escape and bite Farsians arm.

"Tch, you bitch bit me!" Farsian said as he touched his arm, staring at this grotesque thing in front of him.

"I hate vampires, every other human species would have been doomed by that one bite but you guys are already dead so there isn't much to do for the infection." The corpse said as it touched its neck, some of its flesh had clearly come of and some tendons became exposed. Unlike vampires who had a strong life regeneration, zombies only had decay and rot on their exposal. Wounds would stay forever until one died for real or became an elder zombie or higher.

"Don't be like that, lets be friends. I'm sure you have much to say about who send you here to pester me." Farsian said. By now he was rather pissed, getting bitten early in the morning might be alluring to some people but he only found it annoying.

He reached for his daggers to finish this quicker, but the corpse wouldn't let him. Farsian dodged a bite attack and smashed his fist into the skull of the corpse.

*Boom. Like a melon its head split in two and brain matter gushed out in all directions.

"Damn, now I made myself dirty. Tch, shouldn't have killed him." Farsian said as he wiped his hands clean with a piece of cloth from the table.

He turned around and looked out of the window, it was terrible. The place he was about to rule over was descending into chaos.

People died on the streets or in their homes no one was safe.

Why does this always happen? He thought to himself. Every time he went into a city it would soon descend into chaos and destruction.

"Uh... Mr. Farsian? Are you alright?" The barkeeper asked as he made his way into the room, all he saw was a rotten corpse on the ground and Farsian by the window. He didn't see any bite marks or anything similar on him so it had to be fine. When he came to the conclusion that his prized guest that was loaded with gold was still alright he heaved a huge sigh. He originally was thinking about robing the guy or collecting the coins from his corpse but now that he saw him unarmed with his bare back faced towards him and a smashed head that was right in front of him he had his doubts.

This guy has to be insanely strong to smash a head with his bare hands, he thought.

Farsian didn't even take notice of him as he turned around and finished dressing himself up. When Farsian was finished he turned towards the middle aged man and then looked at the pitchfork like object the man was carrying. Great, all that is missing is a torch or something similar, he thought to himself.

"What can you do for me?" Farsian asked the man.

"Eh? What do you mean? Do you need something from me?" The barkeeper was confused.

"Can you use that thing of yours to fight?"

"You mean this?" He said as he held his pitchfork up.

"Yes what else could I mean?" Farsian said as he too reached for his blades and attached them to his waist.

"Well I haven't had any training with it but im sure that I can defend myself." The man said half way already guessing where this was going to go.

"Then follow me we have to take care of this mess." Farsian said as he went past the barkeeper and down the stairs.

Downstairs he saw some dead body's laying around, some of them he recognized as people who had been drinking here the day before.

"Does it always look like this?" Farsian said half jokingly as he saw the body's.

"What are you talking about? Of Course not, this is an exception." The man said as he moved the corpses out of the way.

When he was about to move one of the body's that were lying next to the oven Farsian stopped him.

"Don't. That one has come back again." And with a swift movement he beheaded the corpse.

"We should probably take care of the other ones as well." The barkeeper said and moved them all in the middle of the room where he started setting a fire to burn them all.

Farsian also started throwing corpses into the fire.

Soon there were no more corpses to burn. With that taken care of they set of to liberate the city from its crisis.