A Forsaken Land

Oh, why are we so sad?

Are we feeling hurt by their evil eyes and all those empty words?

We are thirsty for payback?

What would we like to do with the town?

Would we like to make it dance?

With the animals?

Would we? Would we?!

Tell us what we would like to do.

Burn... it... all...

Burn it all

After recalling what happened prior in the awakening of his second life, Cephas emerged of the incousciousness brought by the collapsing magic wormhole, He attempted to take his bearings but fell to his knees and almost regurgitated as he felt his head ringing as if he had been slammed into the bells of a church.

As he was slowly recovering his vision, he saw that only one of the mages arrived unscathed and was lying on the grass, the other seemed to have lost the lower half of his legs all the way to his thighs.

"Ugh... It appears I have some luck after all." he thought as he tried to stand on his feet even if his head was still housing hundreds of war drums, unfortunately the dizzyness of his arrival was still ruining his sense of balance and so he fell flat on the grass. He rolled on his back and waited for the uneasiness to disappear as he regained his senses he started to hear a very loud yell and realised that the legless cultist was screaming at the top of his lungs. Starting to go deaf once again, Cephas used his draining magic to absorb the rest of the legless' pathetic life but his abilities hadn't returned properly yet and so instead of feeding on the agonising wretch he created a big hole between his head and guts.

"Not quite what I had in mind but at least he is silent now."

With the newfound calm settling, Cephas finally realised that he was in a small clearing in the middle of a forest. He looked around to locate in which woods he landed. He shuffled through his magic pouches to find his map to establish his landing point but then he remembered that he left it at Venomspite's barracks. Irritated by this discovery he decided to wake up the still cultist that was still lying face down in the dirt. He rose to his feet and walked giddily toward the dormant mage however after giving a few kicks to awaken him, the warlock noted that he didn't even groan at the rough treatement.

Kneeling next to the mage, the sorcerer used his powers to inspect the corpse's soul stream which ran in his blood only to find that almost all his veins had imploded and was actually about as dead as you can get.

Cephas sighed. "Fantastic... Arrived in a unknown territory without map and without anyone I can torture to give me any information whatsoever. I suppose my luck is very inconsistent."

"Well time to go in search of a town." As he got up his stomach growled furiously.

"Right after I've eaten something." he kneeled again next to the corpse and lowered open his mouth near the human's neck and started chewing and pulling the flesh out and gladly swallowing the meat.

After finishing his meal with a pleasant sigh of culinary contentment.

"It still amazes me how easily one can get accostumed to eating humanoids after turning into an undead. Four years ago that thought alone would've driven me sick..."

Stop thinking about the past it never did any good and you know it. Things have never been the same since then and will never be the same so stop it.

Feeling a rising rage begining its ascension he thought that he should probably "burn" some steam off before he should go in search of benchmarks or civilization.

"Well it has been too long a time since I haven't taken a stroll in a forest creating mayhem anyway."

Cephas didn't walk three steps that four creatures appeared in front of him. He didn't think, he reacted by casting void implosion bombs on two of the entities, a third then jumped on his right and the twitchy spellcaster saw that these things were made of wood and had the size and shape of small wolves. The fourth charged slightly after the third and Cephas didn't see it while he was busy pondering and dodging so the woodwolf open its mouth and tore off his left arm.

"HEY! I need that! Okay play-time's over!" He warned with wrath. Cephas casted hastily a spell at the wolf harrassing him making it flee in fright. After a small respite, he turned to notice that the first two wolves hadn't moved much and decided to end their wait by flunging a Shadowbolt at the void bombs he implanted in them as the first one burst it destroyed the canine and triggered the other one's timebomb blowing it up as well. He pivoted back to face the one that took his limb and glared at the wood creature as it gnawed its catch.

"You know." He said with a mischievious grin. "Fire burns wood."

As he exclaimed those words, he lept, arched his back and then made a punching motion with his remaining arm which made the wolve spontaneously combust. It yelped and tried to flee.

"Oh no you WON'T!" Cephas said as he made a semi-circle with his arm and blocked his hand near his ribs, he clenched his fist and pulled the retreating monster's soul out of its body in a quick motion and absorbed it.

"And now I'm even more angry than before." he sighed as he walked to recover from the jaw of the charred monstrosity his fallen member. He then reinjected it back in its place and groaned slightly as he cauterized the scission between body and limb.

"First encounter in an unknown land and I celebrate it by having my first dismemberment experience. It really is a swell day."

Hearing a shuffle through leaves, Cephas paused and tried to determine where the noise came from and what made it before he realised he forgot about the woodwolve he forced in a terror run.

Why are you so cautious attempting to find the sound? Just burn the forrest down.

Sure then I'll have some trouble running faster than the fire I create.

As soon as his internal monologue ceased, the warlock dodged an incoming pile of wood.

"I suppose that's the one that run in dread." He mused to himself before hearing a great roar. He prepared by holding a large Incineration with his two hands. The howling creature then jumped out of the growth, it looked much like a wyvern except it had more the musculature of a mountain bear and its wings were smaller and lodged in its back.

"Too bad for you I'm already warmed up! Let's see if you can survive the heat of battle." Cephas challenged before launching his spell. The fire attacked quickly the creature making it charge in rage and despair. The warlock threw his hands in the air and made the flame rise on all the wyvern's body, burning it to a crisp making it trip and fall to the ground in embers.

Cephas sat down next to the charred corpse to rest a bit.