6th day of the 356th Varfyr Month

Azkator, on first impressions, was already stranger than both the Black Mountain and the Holy City of Aon combined. When I first arrived at the fortress-city’s entrance, a dragon was attacking the fort-entrance. I tried to wait for the battle to die out but was spotted by the dragon.

I knew running from a dragon was hopeless, so I accepted my fate there and then. Fortunately for me, the dragon was extremely friendly towards me as he thought that I was a ‘minion’ of an old friend of his. I asked which ‘old friend’ it may be, but the dragon simply laughed, thinking it was a joke.

The dragon flew off, telling me to visit his home some time later. I didn’t want to accept that invitation for I fear that he might realize that I wasn’t what he assumed me to be. Contuining towards Azkator, I noticed that the fort entrance of Azkator was manned by ‘dwarves’.

I didn’t know what happened but the dwarves had beards, drank barrels of alcohol, and had the foulest lexicon I had ever heard. Nevertheless, they were friendlier than the dwarves that I knew, and they offered to get me better weapons. Surprisingly, these dwarves crafted their own equipment instead of using goblins to forge the weapons and armor. In fact, dwarven craftsmanship seemed to be the best I had ever seen.

As much as I wanted to stay and learn more about these weird dwarves, the scent of the dead was dying out slowly. I needed to get deep into the city.

8th day of the 356th Varfyr Month

Gaining entrance into Azkator was a mess. The dwarves, as it turned out, appeared to be locked in a civil war. The bearded dwarves had to smash their way into the city against the traditional dwarves. The attackers were in a drunken rage, smashing defenders left and right with their mighty hammers while the defenders, with the help from forced goblin levies, clashed their longswords against the hammers.

Not only that, a goblin rebellion was brewing up within the city. Taking advantage of the ensuing chaos, the goblins attacked both dwarven sides. I kept a low profile within the city while tracking the scent of the dead, or at least the strongest undead. Just like in Aon, the tracks split into multiple paths, each of them going to different sites within a city. Were they scouting out important landmarks to take?

As day turned into night, the fighting had almost stopped with the bearded dwarves taking control of most of Azkator. This worked extremely well for me as the victors were receptive to outsiders like me. They invited me for their victory party, but I simply asked to allow me to use their train to the capital of the United Fortresses.

While most of the city was taken, there were still large pockets of resistances scattered across Azkator. Given time, the bearded dwarves could possibly lose control of the railways, and I wasn’t taking chances whether the goblins or traditional dwarves would even let me through.

9th day of the 356th Varfyr Month

I hopped onto a train loaded with dwarven soldiers bound for the capital. While the bearded dwarves had control of Azkator, they still had to take the other side of the railway. There were already fights within the capital between the beardeds and the traditionalists, so sending reinforcements to the capital was needed even though Azkator still wasn’t fully taken over.

The trip was enlightening, to say the least. Both sides of the dwarves claim to still be citizens of the United Fortresses, but they also claim that the other side are rebels. They both owe allegiance to Queen Ellysa VI, and were more likely to attack rebelling goblins first before each other.

Apparently, according to the bearded dwarves, their ancestors were like them - bearded, gruff, and drank alcohol like there was no tomorrow, so the truth was that the bearded dwarves are the true orthodox dwarves while the posh, clean-shaved dwarves are the heretics.

There was no way to tell if this was true, but I accepted it anyway. It felt… natural?

I inquired on what the queen thought of the current situation but they gave me vague answers. They all responded by explaining that the royal palace was walled off with indestructible stone barrier. They assumed that it was the work of the demons. Whether this was true or not would have to be investigated by me personally.

Late afternoon of the same day

The ride to the capital was smooth except for the odd undead spiders lurking around. Getting some samples after the dwarves slaughtered some spiders that tried to get into the train, I realized that the scent from the spiders was similar to the coin that I was carrying. At last, I had some kind of answer in this sea of madness.

The fact that undead spiders were found this far suggested that a being capable of raising the dead was stirring somewhere. But how did the owner of the coin and the master of the spider get through Aon without much trouble?

My quill that I am using the write quivered with fear as I realized a new conclusion: There’s a new type of undead roaming around; an undead that goes beyond the concept of ‘life’ and ‘death’.

Upon arriving to the capital, the ‘orthodox’ dwarves immediately jumped off the train to join the nearby ongoing fight. Without a choice, I must wait for the fighting to clear off before continuing my journey.