Herewithin find recorded those words of the undead Bard Ha’er’Dalis DaggerSong, Ancient Knight of the Undead Lords of the Realm
Let Fear and Awe be unbound, My Kin, for our Spectral Lord has set upon me visions of Truth and Horror in guise of maddening fits of chaotic Rage. Lo, in the Breach of my mind, Myrkul orchestrated such Revelations as these.
In the Time before Time, Myrkul sought not servants but victims, only the Hugr for His Bones. The first of his Slaves were more willing sacrifice than true Zealot, but even as they cast themselves to His Maw, Others Remained. These were the first of his True Slaves, the first of his unconditional Thralls. Their mouths knew not but to utter, “as You command, My Lord.”
They reveled in their sacrifice, joyous to give, for the alternative be but death, a true death.
The Veil of Bones cast over my eyes began to grind and moan in terrible agony. In the gap of jagged femurs and smashed skulls, there I saw Myrkul placing a fiery crown onto the brow of Zerackus the Bane and that Crown was Knowledge. Then the Lord of Bones and Death said unto Zerackus the Bane, “You are the First of My Knights. Go forth across this land and bring Souls to my Supper. Enslave those who would follow The Path and from them choose only your best. These shall be My Knighthood. These same shall be your Kin for all time so choose them well.”
The Bones spiraled once more filling my vision with the flurry of body-wood, parting to reveal Lord Casimir above the plains of Mourning reaping his fill. With furious volleys of endless daggers the Angel of Death summoned all those unwilling participants to observe Myrkul’s Mass. Above the din of butchery, the grating sound of our Lord spoke to me saying “Here is my own. Here is one who wears his Knighthood on his heart. He does not wear it on his chest as a trophy. It is his Joyous Burden, kept safe in his hateful bosom.”
At once my body was swallowed by sand and I saw my own mortal form, the red skinned elf I had once been. I saw myself crawling through the desert after murdering my beloved and the tribe’s Waterson who had raped her. An enormous skeletal hand lifted my dying coil and dropped it into a forge of blackest Obsidian which spat only Hellfire from its gate. What flowed from that awful oven, was set into a Mold of stone marked with ancient and evil sigils round its base. A new figure of a polished dark metallic hue emerged from the casting which was dashed between an Anvil and Hammer of pure white Bone. In this timeless place, there was time, and it passed. At last, the figure was plunged into a bucket of Blood, quenching its temper. When the figure emerged from the Crimson, I saw my own form as it is now, Skeletal, Decayed, Immortal, Immovable.
And then there was naught but the Darkness of Slumber.
