Whitsunday Plains, East.
It rained all night, and there are puddles of all sizes and slippery mud everywhere in the field. The tenacious white-stemmed grass fell to the ground under the washing of the rain. You must be extra careful when walking on it. just work.
Taka, the corpse dragger, drove the cart carefully on the wilderness. He had to concentrate on picking those solid places without water accumulation to prevent the cart's wheels from getting stuck in the mud. In such a place far away from the camp , once the wheels get stuck in the quagmire, it will be a very troublesome thing.
A gust of cold wind blew, and the unshaven burly man couldn't help shivering. He raised his yellow and cloudy eyes, looked at the low sky in the distance, and couldn't help muttering: "Blood God is really good!" Damn weather."
Rain on Remembrance Day is a bad omen, especially for superstitious draggers.
From the perspective of mysticism, the rain on the night of soul reunion will seriously affect the effect of the bonfire, and even make some small bonfires unable to burn smoothly. The souls of the lost ancestors will wander in the curtain formed by water vapor and flames. Most of the frightening legends about evil spirits and mountain people come from this.
From a practical point of view, the rain on the Anling Festival often means that the weather will turn cold quickly, and winter will come earlier and more rapidly.
No matter which one, it is not a good thing for ordinary people.
The cart seemed to have run over a rock on the road, and the whole car suddenly shook violently. Taka hurriedly manipulated the reins to maintain balance. Amidst the neighing of several pack horses, the car stabilized again. This strong corpse dragger He hurriedly looked back at the car deck behind him. A dozen humanoid "goods" wrapped in linen were still firmly fixed there, and the ropes showed no signs of loosening.
"You guys have to stay well," Taka muttered, "on the Feast of Souls next year, someone will light a bonfire for you."
Of course, the corpse will not respond to the dragger's words, but like every eccentric and shunned corpse dragger, Taka also has his own eccentricity. He is used to talking to his "cargo" and pretending that they are able to The "passengers" who understand his own words, he believes that it is necessary for him to establish a good relationship with the "passengers". Only by maintaining a good relationship can these "passengers" avoid troubles for him in the future.
Especially since these "passengers" died on the battlefield and were the remains of soldiers who were rumored to be most likely to turn into evil spirits, it would be even more sloppy.
The road ahead was very slippery, and the puddles were difficult to bypass. While carefully controlling the car, the corpse dragger cursed in a low voice: "This bloody civil war... I don't know how long it will last. You guys Say yes?"
Although he was swearing so much, Taka knew very well that if it weren't for this civil war, his "business" would not be so good.
War will create a lot of corpses, soldiers, civilians, and even knights and mages occasionally. Of course, the latter are noble dead, and they cannot be contacted by low-level corpse draggers like Taka, but the former will not The same, those who died on the battlefield and on the edge of the battlefield will become the main source of income for the corpse draggers. The commanders of the two warring parties and the people in the village will hire professional corpse draggers to dispose of those corpses that are too late to restrain or cannot be identified. The corpse draggers do not need to seriously bury them, but only need to transport them to the designated pit , Avoid polluting water sources or generating evil spirits.
This is a lowly but well-paid job, and corpse draggers are usually engaged in it for generations, and they often do this kind of work with the dead, and corpse draggers will naturally form their own set of rules and taboos, such as absolutely The dead must not be insulted, and the name of the god of death must not be chanted when collecting the remains (this is to prevent the dead who should have entered the kingdom of other gods from being targeted by the god of death), and the corpse must be sent to the destination.
It was precisely because of this rule that Taka had to rush on the muddy and slippery plain to prevent his "passengers" from being furious because they missed the "Day of Return" after the Feast of the Soul.
When the giant sun was gradually flying into the sky, Taka finally arrived.
This is a place far away from the front line of the battle, and it is also far away from any camp of the Eastern Borderers or the Kingdom Army. It is a natural pit, and it has become stinky now.
The corpse dragger put on a heavy scarf and hood, and wrapped his hands with cloth strips. He nimbly jumped out of the cart and looked at the empty place.
Frankly speaking, this is not a very suitable cemetery. It does not meet the teachings of the gods of death, nor does it meet the requirements of the blood god, but this is the place designated by the client, so Taka, who is the dragger, does not I will delve into why I have to throw all the corpses in this big pit.
Some scattered wooden carvings and metal frames can be seen around the big pit. Those are simple altars set up by the priests to appease the souls. They are very crude things, but they are enough to deal with the lowest level of evil spirits. Taka walked towards one of the wood carvings next to the edge of the big pit, and then took out a crumpled death chrysanthemum from his arms according to the rules of the corpse dragger, and placed it at the root of the wood carving.
The small white flowers lie quietly in a piece of mud, and the petals shake slightly in the cold wind. This small flower that can be seen everywhere in humid and dark environments has amazing vitality. It can grow and bloom almost all year round. , Even after being picked off, they can survive tenaciously for several days. The Ansu people firmly believe that this incredible vitality is the evidence that they can communicate the kingdoms of the living and the dead, and the Ansu people also believe in another thing: every flower The death chrysanthemum grows in the kingdom of the living and the dead at the same time. The moment it withers in the world is the moment when it blooms in the underworld. Contact successfully arrived at the "other shore", and embarked on the road to various kingdoms of God on the other shore...
"Little Hua, I hope you can guide these lost people to find their destination..." the corpse dragger whispered, drawing the mark of the Blood God on his chest, "Oh...it's really hard for you, a flower wants to lead so Many people…”
After saying this, Taka turned around and was about to go to the cart to carry the corpse.
However, before taking a step, his eyes suddenly noticed another thing not far away.
It was the embers of a campfire, and a small one at that.
The corpse dragger was a little curious, he stepped to the embers of the campfire, and smelled a little smoke in his nostrils.
The bonfire was actually extinguished not long ago.
"Somebody mourning the dead here?" Taka muttered, circling the small campfire. "Maybe a relative of some lucky guy in the mass grave came and took the body..."
Halfway through the words of the dragger, he suddenly stopped.
It rained a lot last night, and I heard that it was especially heavy on the Dakeng side.
In the continuous rain, such a small bonfire is difficult to burn smoothly. Even if it uses the bark of the black-grained tree that can burn in the rain, it should not burn so thoroughly.
There was no trace of moisture around the campfire. It wasn't that it was dried by the fire, but it seemed that there was no rainwater falling on the ground with a radius of more than ten meters.
In addition to the smell of smoke and dust in the air, there is also a strange sweet smell, which seems to be some kind of flower fragrance, but it is not the smell of death chrysanthemum.
Taka has been a corpse dragger for half his life, and he knows all about the spices that will appear on the Feast of Souls, but he has never smelled anything like it...
Although he couldn't tell what was going on, the corpse dragger instinctively felt a little weirdness. This weird feeling made him uneasy, and reminded him vaguely of the rumors circulating among the corpse draggers recently …
It is said that there are ghouls haunting the night... Flesh-eating monsters are active in the dark land... The corpses in the mass graves seem to be inexplicably decreasing... The remains that are too late to bury often disappear for no reason...
In the cold wind of late autumn, the corpse dragger couldn't help shivering. He felt something malicious was moving under his feet. Although he couldn't see it, that thing seemed to have seen him.
He is not an extraordinary person, but he is a corpse dragger who has dealt with the dead for half his life, and he is also a relatively devout follower of the blood god. He knows that he has some intuitions that ordinary people do not have, and this intuition has been true in his past life. Indeed, he escaped several evil spirit attacks.
He began to step back cautiously, moving as gently and naturally as possible, trying not to show panic.
However, a rustling sound suddenly came to his ears. Accompanied by the rustling sound, he saw some turf and clods shaking in the mass grave below, and several people wrapped in sackcloth The humanoid figure that he threw in three days ago is wriggling strangely.
The corpse dragger's eyes widened. He clearly saw several vine-like things suddenly grow out of the soil, piercing the corpses, and then the ground fluctuated like water, swallowing the corpses into the dark depths …
Tremendous panic hit him, and he finally couldn't control the exclamation, and after the exclamation, he ran away.
But the weird sweet smell permeating the air came out again, and it was more obvious than before. In this sudden sweet smell, Taka, the corpse dragger, was in a trance for a while, and then fell into a long and deep battle. dream.
Vine-like things spread out from between the soil and blades of grass, and wrapped around the limbs of the corpse dragger. Amidst a low grunt and rustle, the soil fluctuated like water, dragging him into the ground bit by bit.
The cold wind in late autumn blew across the plains and the deserted mass graves. It was quiet here, as if nothing had happened.
A moment later, a sudden gust of wind blew across the plain suddenly, and the wind rolled up a large number of fallen leaves that came from nowhere. Amidst the flying leaves, a woman wearing a green priest's robe appeared.
Bertila frowned, looked at the position where the dragger was swallowed by the earth, and sighed slightly: "Unlucky guy..."
"Your pile of bonfires to commemorate the dead caught his attention," a deep and indistinct voice came from the depths of the earth, accompanied by the rustling sound of shuttles, "I'm curious, who is it that deserves it?" A patriarch lit a bonfire on Feast of Souls... Do you believe in the return of the dead like ordinary people?"
"Master Heaton, don't forget why you were punished for coming here to collect biomass. Just do your job well."
"Ha...you are probably the most boring woman in the world..."
There was an indistinct grunting sound from the ground, and then the sound gradually sank, and the rustling and shuttle sound gradually weakened. The person who made the sound seemed to have returned to the deeper soil.
Bertila stood quietly on the spot for a while, as if thinking about something. After standing still for a few minutes, she started to move under the priest's long skirt, and her "legs" composed of countless roots and vines squirmed , and brought her to the extinguished bonfire.
A blooming chrysanthemum fell in the embers of the campfire.
"I don't care what's in your body... You can't stop this plan.
"Human beings will live forever, even if they rebel against the gods."