The Radiant Dawn

"It is time," Stacie said as the clock struck midnight. Stacie lit a single white candle and walked to the east of the altar. "Air, may your swiftness bless our strikes and spells, such that they may land with renewed fury! Howl as the moon shines, to deny our foes sleep! Slow down their march, so we may overtake them!" After her prayer, Stacie placed the candle on the palm of the bony hand protruding from the ground at that spot, and the hand began to glow a deathly purple-black. Stacie then lit a red candle and walked in front of the altar to the hand at the west. "Fire, blaze forth from our weapons and our hands! Ignite the flesh of our foes! Destroy anything that resists us or stands in our way! Carry our fury with you!" She then placed the candle on the hand's palm, and it too began to glow ominously. She lit a blue candle and carried it to the south, placing it too in a protruding bone hand. "Water, grant us the clarity to win the strategic battle, and muddy our enemies' vision. Let us pour over them like an unstoppable tide, wearing away at everything they hold dear! Chill our enemies as they try to rest, and freeze them to their cores!" She lit a fourth candle, this one green, and carried it to the altar's north. "Earth, imbue us with your resilience and strength, and parch our enemies! Crumble beneath their feet whilst you hold ours firm! Your strength will be ours in battle, ours and not theirs!" Stacie then placed the green candle in yet another protruding bony hand, and it, like the others, began to glow. Instead of the standard purple candle that would occupy the center of the elemental circle, Stacie withdrew a candle as black as pitch and placed it at the center. She set flame to it, calling upon a new element. "Death, come to us! We are your harbingers, the extension of your will! Grant us the power to bring those in your realm back into ours, and we will repay you a thousand fold! With the force you lend us, this entire world will belong to you!" "Power of the Great Dark Beyond!" Aaron roared. “Let us become the royalty of Death, so we may spread chaos and destruction across the land! Let us reap horror and darkness, and bring to an end the greatness of man! Let us usher in a new age of suffering!" Aaron planted the blade of his sword into the fleshy altar, to the left of the candle. Stacie drove the base of her staff to the candle's right. Dark power began to flow through it, quickly enveloping the weapons and then Aaron and Stacie. The power snuffed out their life, replacing it with death's animation. It removed any trace of a soul either one had, replacing it with a void. And it bound them together in spirit, closer than they ever had been before. "And now, let us consume the altar in the process, hereby sealing us and us alone as the harbingers of death!" Stacie called out, raising her hands and calling on dark fire. The fire leapt to life, rapidly burning away the flesh of the altar. Dark energy swirled around them as the altar burned, releasing all of its power. Aaron and Stacie reached out, absorbing it as it escaped from the burning altar. The altar's power would never be used by another, for it now fully belonged to them. A warped demonic face, surrounded in purple-black glow like that of the hands, appeared on the back wall. "My warrior, you will be the instrument of death here. Lead your army against the pathetic mortals, wipe them clean from this earth, so I may have a suitable world to come to. Blight the land and destroy the life here, so I may have a suitable world from which to rule!" "And my warlock, raise the dead that he creates in my image. Snuff their souls out and replace them with my power. Build for me a mighty army, an army of the dead powerful enough to bring Jehovah's gates tumbling down around him!" "Yes, master! The Blade of Death is yours to command!" Aaron cried out. "Yes, master! The Staff of Death is yours to command!" Stacie called out after. "Do not fail me!" the demonic face shouted as it faded back into nothingness. Aaron and Stacie walked out of the stone ritual chamber, facing a vast Inca burial ground. Stacie raised her staff and spoke to the earth. "Rise, ancient bones of the Incas! You will be my first of many! Rise, and serve the royal family of death!" In all corners of the ancient burial ground, bony hands began to protrude from the earth, followed by the arms and eventually skulls, torsos, legs and feet. Stacie kept her staff raised high as the skeletons rose from the ground and turned to face her. "This is only the beginning," Stacie said to Aaron as the field of undead expanded. "The bones remaining here are few, and won't be enough to conquer the world." Aaron replied. "But there are cemeteries all over the world, full of dead for us to raise. We will raise them, and it will be with those bones that we take the world by force."