The sun descended from the horizon and its light slowly began to leave the world. Even so, Edune sweated beneath his robes as he crossed the Harena Desert. In the shadow of a sand dune he and his elemental minions waited and rested while the desert cooled lightly. The man was not young, but in his prime. His brown hair was cropped short, and now slick with sweat. Beneath his oily brow sat two eyes gleaming with intelligence, but now darkened with brooding concern. Stubble revealed that it had been days since he had been clean and well rested, although his sweaty stench probably told that tale just as well. Aysut, the City of the Dead had arisen within the desert, and a call for aid had come that no person of the right side of the world should ignore. And so, the mage had come, prepared to wield his sorcery to combat the undead. It would not be the first time he had fought walking corpses, but it was certainly the most frightening battle to contemplate. A powerful lich priest, servant of a long dead god, ruled the city from its massive pyramid. Even now, corpses walked the desert, although he had yet to see one. He was not yet close enough to the city.
On either side of him, his two elementals waited with thoughtless indifference. One, the larger of the two, was composed entirely of ice and encircled by arcane runes, imprinted on its icy surface. Edune stayed close to this one in the desert. Recently, through diligent study of the arcane arts, the mage had discovered how to summon an elemental minion for an indefinite amount of time. The process was quite tricky, though, and he had only just found the right spells and runes to bind a normal sized elemental to this plane. The other was a fire elemental, in the shape of a large moth composed completely of flame. Its wingspan was slightly more than a foot, and it perched on the side of the dune, flames flickering slightly in the breeze. The mage studied his frost elemental. In the time since they had begun crossing the desert, he had been concerned that the elemental might melt, or be unable to persist in such a hot environment. While the being showed some signs of discomfort after hours beneath the sun, it did not appear to melt or come to harm. No doubt some fire would be able to melt it– which was why the small fiery elemental was always several meters away, fluttering along. Now, as night began to fall, his fiery light would be a source of some comfort. The mage picked up his study cloth backpack, sliding its straps on beneath his cloak. He stood and stretched, ready to continue his journey, and his elementals stirred as well, the icy humanoid uncurling from the shadow of the sand dune, standing to reveal it was over four feet tall, but still short. Edune bent to pick up his mage's staff, the blue runes on its pale shaft glowing softly. He began his trek across the desert as night fell. The sister moons became visible in the sky, and stars shone down upon the desert, but the heat did not readily dissipate.
Hours passed in the heat of the desert night as they walked towards the city. Next, Edune reminded himself, he would summon himself a mount. Walking was shit. A dark silhouette crested a large dune ahead, shuffling oddly. The movements of the shadowy creature were what set the mage off; this was not a living thing. Wrapped in ancient cloth, a corpse shuffled towards them in the growing night. Calmly, the mage raised his staff and pointed its crystalline tip towards the creature. The first ball of fire missed, striking above the undead as it fell down the shifting side of the sandy dune. As it stumbled up, rotting arms pushing it up out of the coarse sand, the second fireball struck it in the chest, and a third in the neck. The creature did not last much longer, the fiery spells burning as they consumed old, dried flesh and ancient cloths. Not two minutes later, nothing but ash remained, a small black stain on the sand. A booted foot parted the ash, swirling it in the desert breeze as most of it blew away. The mage walked calmly over the remains and crested the next dune, reasoning that he must be closer to the city than he had gauged.
Indeed, not an hour later he crested another sandy hill to find himself staring at the distant city. He had heard tale of an outpost, but must have missed it or come from the wrong direction. Carefully, the mage made his way down the hills towards the enormous city, which glowed eerily green. In its prime it must have been an incredible, unrivaled city, but the desert sands and time had worn at it. Still, it was an impressive, and frightening sight. Ahead, his fiery moth minion shone the way. Behind, his ice elemental stumbled across the sand mindlessly. The city was below, and even as Edune studied it he felt a shiver along his spine. Was the city aware of him? Or someone within it? Or was that feeling something else, perhaps-?
A corpse burst out of the sand just ahead, and the man stumbled backwards, his icy elemental surging forwards on the attack. A hand burst out of the ground to grab his foot, nearly tripping the mage. His fire elemental landed on the rotting hand before he could cast a spell, catching the rotting flesh aflame. The grip eased and he danced back to find only more corpses approaching. This had to be some type of scouting party, or ambush. Or both. He hadn't even made it to the city yet, but he was certainly already in the middle of the fight. Easily two dozen corpses walked towards him in the sands, most armed with a curved blade in hand. Perhaps these armed undead were heading out to attack, and he had crossed their path. One among their number must have been the party leader- it was a larger corpse, heavily muscled, wearing a huge mask that looked like the head of a jackal. The eyes of the mask glowed softly red, and in his hand he held a black wand.
The corpses surged forth, and the masked undead shot a bolt of black energy from his wand, narrowly missing the mage and nearly hitting his ice elemental. This would not be a quick, or easy fight. The Mage began to regret his journey here alone, and pondered if he should find the outpost and collect aid before attempting to approach the city. Where were the other fighters? Had the resistance already fallen? Maybe it was too late to get help. The mage cursed beneath his breath as he prepared a spell, his grip tight on his staff.
