The skies above the Scorched Vale were ash-gray, choking the sun and blanketing the land in a lifeless hue. Beneath that gloom, the earth split open with the groans of ancient power as skeletal behemoths clawed their way from mass graves. Bone dragons, each forged from the remains of fallen wyrms and held together by black magic, soared overhead with hollow roars that echoed like death knells. Their wings were leather-thin veils of shadow and bone, beating against winds that no longer carried life.
At the center of it all, Liora stood atop a twisted obsidian spire, her cloak of woven souls trailing behind her like smoke. Her eyes—once warm and curious—now glowed with cold, eldritch light, twin beacons of power unmoored from humanity. Where she walked, the ground withered. Where she looked, fear took root.
Below her, a thousand skeletal soldiers stood in rank and file, their rusted weapons gleaming with dark enchantments. Some wore the tattered remnants of royal armor. Others bore the twisted horns of corrupted beasts or the runes of old orders long since annihilated. She had raised them all.
Her voice cut through the still air like a blade. "You are mine. Not because I demand it—but because you were forgotten by the world. I remember you. And now... you will remember me."
The army let out a shriek—not a cheer—each undead creature howling with a fury that defied death. Liora extended her hand, and from the bowels of the earth, another great shape stirred. A titanic war beast made of fused bone, plated in the remains of dragons and giants, emerged on all fours. Its eyes were hollow. Its mouth was filled with fire.
She smiled.
Behind her, the silence broke with a shift in the air. A magical ripple. A teleportation spell of ancient design. She didn't turn.
"I allowed you through my barrier. Be quick. Speak before I change my mind."
The scent of mead and soot clung to the armored man who knelt behind her. He was cloaked in a mantle of stonewolf fur, braided gold in his beard, a silver crown cracked at one edge. His voice was heavy, yet respectful.
"I am King Haldrik Ironmantle, of the Deepforge Line. Ruler of the Hollow Mountains. And I come to beg your aid."
Liora turned, slowly. Her expression unreadable. "Begging doesn't suit a king. You'd do better as a corpse."
The Dwarven King bowed deeper, knuckles pressed to obsidian. "Then let me die knowing I tried to save my people. The fire serpents have awoken beneath the mountain. Our runes hold no power over them. My armies are sundered. My son lies in pieces. My people—what's left of them—hide in the Deep Cisterns, awaiting their end."
"And what," she said, drifting toward him with eerie grace, "do you offer the Bone Queen in exchange for salvation?"
Haldrik lifted a trembling hand, revealing a jagged shard of ore glowing with molten veins. "The Heart of Valthrun. A living ore from the World's Root. Said to be part of the first forge, older than the gods."
Liora took it between her fingers, examined it. It pulsed with raw creation. A perfect contrast to her death-bound magic.
"You insult me," she said with a sneer, and crushed it in her palm. The ore screamed, then fell silent, turned to dust.
Haldrik's face twisted in anguish. "It was all I had—"
"No," she whispered, and her voice curled with dark delight. "You still have your kingdom. That is the price."
The Dwarf blinked. "You mean... you would destroy it?"
"No. I mean you will give it to me. Every stone. Every soul. Every ancestral name carved into the walls. Swear it to me, and I will cleanse your tunnels of flame and claw. I will raise your dead to fight again. And when the last ember dies, the Hollow Mountains will belong to the Queen of Death."
"You demand our legacy..."
"I demand your future."
Haldrik fell silent, eyes wide with horror and shame. He looked at his hands, blistered from battle, trembling from age. Then he whispered, "Will they suffer? The living?"
"No more than death demands," she replied. "And far less than fire would."
The pause stretched. Then, with a guttural sigh, Haldrik unsheathed a dagger from his belt. A ceremonial blade of black iron. He drew it across his palm and spoke in the old tongue, words carved in the stone of his ancestors.
"I swear by the bones of my fathers, by the anvil and the vault, by stone and flame and time... the Hollow Mountains are yours, Liora of the Dark Flame."
Liora closed her fingers and sealed the oath with magic. The air pulsed once, then fell still.
"Rise, King of Nothing," she said. "Go back to your tombs. I'll send the wind of death to walk beside you."
He vanished in a flash of gold, the spell whimpering under her dominance.
Liora turned back to her army. They waited, silent, hungry.
"Prepare to march," she ordered. "We will descend into the Hollow Mountains—and when we rise... the world will tremble."
As the skeletal dragons lifted into the sky and the war-beast howled its rage, Liora raised her staff and channeled pure death through the ground. Her shadow stretched across the Scorched Vale, swallowing light.
She was no longer just a necromancer. She was a sovereign of the dead.
A goddess in all but name.
And far to the east, the gods finally stirred from their slumber.