“Be not wary of strange sights,

That thine eyes would often grace,

As one walked through foreign space,

Not like one’s hometown frills, quite.” - Poem by August III Levican, nobleman and poet from the Clangeddin empire, circa 409 VA.

To Celia’s surprise, other than the first lurch when the undead contraption she was seated in started moving, the rest of their journey was smoother than any ride she had ever experienced in her life.

While part of the credit for that smooth experience might be to Ptolodecca’s very well-maintained roads, as while the roads in the Jarldoms were oftentimes just heavily traversed dirt paths at times, lined with cobblestones at best on the larger roads, in the Lichdom they were far better done. The roads were covered by flat, solid sheets of thick stone that must have been either crafted or shaped by mages given its size and evenness.

Those stone slabs made for a very smooth road, the seam between two slabs practically invisible, so well-fitted they were. To the sides of the roads were drainage canals, a place for the rainwater to go to, as the region was a rather wet one during the hotter seasons. Celia thought that even the worst carriages would have achieved a smooth ride on such a road either way.

That proved to be irrelevant with the contraption they rode on, however, as Celia learned when their journey crossed a small hill.

The hill in question was not a tall one, and the road simply went over it, with a slight incline on either side and a flat section at the top. What Celia had not expected was how their undead carriage never even slowed or tilted as it climbed, its twelve legs adjusting their positions so that the main body of the carriage itself never shifted from the horizontal despite the incline they were on.

And all that while traveling at speeds that would easily match a galloping horse.

In only a brief time, the border fort they entered from was already gone from sight, as the undead carriage-like contraption they were on sped on the road, easily overtaking a few merchant convoys that had been ahead of them within minutes. Along the way Celia also saw a convoy that was mistakenly from the Lichdom itself, for she doubted that merchants from other places would have employed a necromancer to animate skeletal beasts of burden for the sole purpose of drawing their carriages.

As their contraption sped past the merchant’s caravan – they were not that much faster than it compared to how they easily sped past caravans from the jarldom, as the undead beasts of burden were capable of maintaining greater speeds endlessly if needed – a middle-aged woman who might be the head merchant, or at least someone pretty important, given the finery they dressed with, even waved at them in a friendly manner, which the necromancer operating their contraption returned in turn.

“Who was that?” Celia asked with some curiosity.

“Ah, she was my senior when I was still a student of the arts,” replied their driver with a smile. That reply surprised Celia somewhat, as the woman had not looked any bit like the stereotypical image of a necromancer she was familiar with. “Heard she served her time with the nation and then chose to retire to work privately. Seems like that lifestyle agrees with her.”

Aideen had previously explained to Celia that most Necromancers who learned their skills in Ptolodecca were required to work for the Lichdom for at least ten years, after which they were free to strike out on their own or continue studying. Most chose to continue studying, as the Lichdom was easily the haven of knowledge when it comes to Death affinity magic, after all.

Their driver looked a lot more like a stereotypical necromancer in Celia’s eye, with rather shaggy hair that reached his shoulder and a poor attempt at growing facial hair. Pale skin that contrasted with the blacks and dark purples – which she learned was a uniform for people who were in service to the Lichdom, and was favored by most to begin with as it was the colors of Tohrmut, Deity of Death – further enhanced that look, though once they got him talking, he proved to be a talkative young man.

On the other hand, the middle-aged woman that waved at them looked every bit like the rich lady next door, with a ruddy, tanned complexion and dressed in brightly colored finery and jewelry. It was one reason Celia had mistaken her as a merchant at first rather than peg her as the necromancer who was controlling the multitudes of undead beasts that pulled the carriages at speed.

The Lichdom of Ptolodecca very quickly proved to be very different than the typical conceptions people had when they heard of a land ruled by an immortal undead, where the Death affinity was worshiped and Necromancers were not just welcomed, but also widely proliferated.

Aideen had talked about her homeland from time to time, but she never really described it much, wanting Celia to see it with her own eyes. The younger unliving woman’s expectation of a land of darkness full of decayed vegetation was thus quickly blown away by the rich orchards and fertile fields that dotted the landscape of the Lichdom.

On the other hand, some parts of what Celia imagined proved to be an underestimation. She had expected to see undead skeletons roaming the place, sure, but she had not expected to see them standing tall like sentries on the sides of the road every hundred meters or so, one on each side of the road, facing outwards. When Celia put together the length of the road they had traversed so far with the skeleton sentries so regularly placed, she came up with a rather mind-boggling number, a number that explained how the Lichdom managed to maintain such a high degree of security for its people, that no other nation she had been to ever managed to even come close to.

And that was just what she saw on the main roads.