Later that night, as the group huddled in a makeshift camp of withered logs and glowing mushrooms, Tess quietly sifted through an old tome she'd looted from a ruined monastery weeks prior. Her eyes paused on a woodcut illustration of a creature resembling the Shepherd.
"Here," she murmured. Abraham leaned over, wincing from his bandaged arm. "It's called a Remnant—a being left behind when a soul refuses the call of death. Not just undead. Something worse."
The owl undead spun its head toward the east. In the distance, faint thunder echoed—not from the sky, but from the earth itself. Abraham followed the sound with his ears.
"That's not thunder," he said. "That's marching."
And far beyond the swamp, in the moonlit mountains bordering the Withered Frontier, a horn sounded—long, low, and old. The signal of something ancient awakening. Of the next challenge on the horizon.
Abraham didn't know what awaited them, but he knew one thing for certain: the Shepherd's arrival was only the beginning.
***
They walked for days.
The dense fog hung like a spectral curtain over the jagged marshland, coiling around the gnarled roots and half-submerged ruins.
Abraham stood knee-deep in murky waters, his dark robe clinging to his frame. The mist muffled every sound except for the croaking of warped frogs and the subtle ripple of undead movement beneath the surface.
Chop, the ever-evolving ant-beast, crouched at his side—taller than Abraham himself, with a new chitinous plating that shimmered subtly in the dim light.
The group had entered the place called Blighted Fen to investigate a series of beastling disappearances reported by Tess's new network of informants—undead creatures gifted sentience by Abraham's experiments.
Rumors hinted at something ancient awakening beneath the swamp. With him were Tess, donning a newly-acquired short cloak over her leather armor; her eyes scanned the horizon with uncanny precision.
Anzu, one of the sentient, resurrected owl that often perched atop Chop, glided ahead, guiding their path through the fog.
The Blighted Fen was a place of legend, whispered by wandering beastling traders and half-mad human cartographers who dared map the darker corners of the world. The Barren Death. Most called it cursed; others claimed it was sacred.
Abraham found the idea of a sacred swamp a bit ridiculous—until the land itself began to move.
A deep gurgling resounded beneath their feet. Bubbles as large as pumpkins burst through the thick water with no warning, releasing a stench so vile that even Tess gagged. Chop clicked nervously, retreating a step.
"We're not alone," Tess whispered, her eyes darting between shifting shadows. Her ears twitched—a detail Abraham still wasn't used to, ever since her ill-fated magical experiment temporarily gave her animal-like sensitivity. She insisted it would wear off soon. Abraham wasn't convinced.
Chop stomped forward, causing a loud splash. The water burst apart, revealing a warped beastling—a bloated, malformed amalgamation of fur and bone, crawling on all fours with empty sockets where eyes should be. Its skin peeled in strips, as if flayed by unseen claws.
Abraham raised his staff. Green fire spiraled upward, casting eerie shadows across the reeds and ruined statues dotting the mire.
"Tess, back me up! Chop, flank it from the left!"
The beastling howled—a keening, soul-wrenching wail that sent shivers up his spine.
Tess darted left, her boots barely making a splash. She hurled a vial that erupted into crimson flames, briefly igniting the beast's fur.
Chop surged from the side, slamming into it with his horned carapace. The beast screeched and flailed, hitting Chop with a meaty arm that cracked like thunder against his shell.
The swamp hissed with motion. More figures rose—six, no, eight malformed beastlings, each more grotesque than the last. Abraham's breath caught.
"That's... that's impossible. I buried those fellas myself. I resurrected them weeks ago."
Tess stared at him. "Then why are they here?"
Abraham's eyes glowed as he drew upon the connection with his undead. But these creatures resisted him. No thread of control. It was like grasping smoke.
"Something... rewrote them. Or replaced them. Or mimicked them. I don't know."
Suddenly, the ground quaked. Sinked ruins behind them cracked open like old bones, revealing a staircase that had not seen sunlight in centuries. From the far side of the mire, the waters parted.
A towering silhouette emerged—shaped like a beastling, but cloaked in robes stitched from sinew and moss. Its face was concealed by a bark-carved mask, and antlers jutted from its skull like a crown.
Tess hissed, drawing closer to Abraham. "That's no beastling."
The figure raised a clawed hand, and the mutated beastlings ceased moving. A voice, raspy and low, filled the swamp.
"You steal from death. You twist the old ways."
Abraham swallowed, gripping his staff tighter. "And you're the one who took my creations. Who are you?"
"I am the Shepherd of Rot. The one who walked this world as you are. Your struggle bring me here. Alive from nothingness."
The declaration hit Abraham like a punch to the gut. As he was? Wasn't he arrived in this world alone? What was exactly this creature talked about?
A ripple of power surged from the Shepherd, sending tremors through Abraham's spells. The staff in his hand buzzed, resonating with unfamiliar energy. Then the Shepherd gestured, and two beastlings charged.
Abraham launched a volley of green skull-shaped flame, incinerating one, but the other got close enough to rake its claws across his arm. Pain seared through him.
Tess cut the beastling down before it struck again. Chop leapt at another, ripping it in half with a sickening crunch. Anzu soared above, diving with spectral talons, tearing into the swamp-mutants.
"Fall back!" Abraham shouted, blood staining his sleeve. The ground beneath them trembled. Something vast stirred below, sending bubbles to the surface. The air reeked of rot and mold, almost too thick to breathe.
As they retreated, the Shepherd's voice carried across the fen.
"You toy with forces you don't understand, child of the veil. This world has no place for a false lord of death. Only I, the first rotborn ever came into this world, who has the right to rule over the living and the dead."
They ran, and ran, until they left the swamp, the trees thinned and the air grew lighter. On a moss-covered rise, they stopped. Abraham collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily. Tess knelt beside him, pressing a healing salve to his wound.
"You okay?"
"I will be..." Abraham looked back into the swamp. "But that thing, if it's really what I think it is, then we're in more trouble than I thought."
Chop clicked softly, nudging Abraham's shoulder with his massive head.
Tess looked to the dark horizon. "We need answers. Fast. And allies. Lots of allies. That thing is ambitious. And it has the power to do so."
Abraham nodded slowly, the Shepherd's words ringing in his ears. He could feel it in the marrow of his bones. The war for the world, the one he never signed, had just begun.
And he wasn't the only player on the board.
***