Jonathan gathered his forces over the next few hours, ending up with a small unit of around fifty elites, ready to spearhead the assault of Cessation. He transfixed them all with a grim stare, cementing the importance of their mission into their minds.
Edgar, Arkanon and Hushar stood by him, all three just as resolute and as certain in their mission. Arkanon had decided to fully join Jonathan’s cause. His people were safe, as the mimic threat was gone. The second realm of Tartarus was truly safe.
“I’ve found myself giving more speeches than I ever have had a reason to before,” Jonathan began. “To be honest, I would prefer to be out in the field of battle, sinking my fists into the flesh of my foes. However, I know that I am but one man, and a single man cannot be an army. Armies need to be inspired, and it seems that is my job.”
A cheer rang out from the small crowd, and Jonathan smiled.
“Two circles of Hell have been defeated, utterly broken now and forever more! I may have slain their lords, but the circles themselves were freed by people like you. Going forwards, there will be more opportunities for growth, more ways to make your mark upon the fabric of the cosmos itself! Soldiers, we march upon Cessation, the third circle of the Infinite Hells. Our quest will end in victory! With people like you behind me, we cannot fail!”
“Who’s with us!” Edgar bellowed, using the wind to amplify his voice.
“WE ARE!” The response came, the force of fifty lungs sending a wave of sound out into the world.
Jonathan raised his fist and then dropped it, summoning the purple portal to the next realm in the meanwhile. He looked around, gauging the looks on the faces of his soldiers, those that he could see at least. All seemed nervous, but excited for what was to come. Eliza had a wide grin on her face, one that vanished as soon as Jonathan looked at her. A tiny spark of Divinity had flickered around her fingers for the briefest of moments, but Jonathan wasn’t sure if he had actually seen it or not.
Then he put that out of his mind and stepped into the portal. Reality warped, and a moment later, he stepped out onto a windswept plain of grey, almost monochrome rock and vegetation. A sepulchral howl ran through the air as gusts billowed over the landscape. There was no life to be seen, save for a few gnarled shrubs, fighting to survive in the wasteland.
“So this is Cessation,” Arkanon declared as he stepped through the portal. “It certainly fits the name.”
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“Where are all the monsters?” Jonathan asked. “We can see for dozens of miles here, and there is nothing to be found.”
Edgar appeared next to them a moment later. “I would assume that the name of the circle gives a clue as to how its denizens act. Cessation implies that they have given up on life, and everything save for simply existing. Or perhaps, not even that.”
“Right,” Jonathan said. “The circle lord was called the Stillborn Hegemon. What if this is a circle filled with the undead?”
Over the next minute, the rest of the unit trickled out of the portal, and only once they were all arranged before him, did Jonathan speak.
“Stick close together. We are in a new and unfamiliar land, where anything could happen. So far, I have a suspicion that this might be a circle of the undead.”
He received a few nods in reply, and the half smiles that rested on some of the soldiers’ faces turned down into frowns. The undead were not the most common of foes, not by any stretch of imagination. Even though they were quite prevalent, they tended to stick together, and only when a necromancer or lich had amassed enough strength did they march upon the lands of the living.
Once everyone was ready, they started to march along the blasted plain, stepping carefully over the twisted shrubbery and grey expanse of stone. Cracks spread across the land, out of which the plants grew. From them, faint whispers and howls seemed to drift, although it could easily have been the wind.
Jonathan closed the portal behind him, and kept his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. He had the most advanced perception among anyone there, so the job fell to him.
For the first thirty minutes, nothing happened, no skeletal hands appearing from the earth, no unearthly beings drifting in from the plane of undeath. Finally, once Jonathan had begun to wonder if the realm was empty, save for its lord, he spotted something.
A small town rested in between two hillocks of rock, just as grey as the rest of its surroundings. It was desolate, with only twenty dwellings there. There was no farm, nothing to suggest the mechanisms of life that a normal hamlet would have needed.
The group slowed down, drawing weapons if they were not already in hand. Edgar summoned spears of wind to his hands. His staff was long gone, having been outgrown by his own mastery, without a means of replacement. In any case, the man had said that a staff was more of a crutch than anything else. He would gain more power by directly manipulating his element.
Jonathan led the way towards the town, not seeing, or hearing anything that would suggest life. Then he saw a figure stepping out from behind a building, holding a piece of wood. It looked like a human, but it was slightly wrong. Its skin was grey, and while its movements seemed normal enough, there was a slight lethargy to them that was oddly regular, each step taking the same amount of time to go through one laborious arc.
Jonathan’s fist began to blaze with light, but he held the attack back until he could find out more about the situation. The presence of houses suggested sapience. There was also the possibility that the houses had belonged to long dead settlers, and undead were all that remained.
