Eukara Vox
Legendary AdventureGuide!
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You Can Dance
by Rimblade
What happens after death?
Death is one of the greatest riddles any world has to offer. All things living must die, the flickering candle of life blown out by the all-powerful wind of fate. The cold embrace of the grave eventually claims all mortal things. The endless syllogism of the void- but perhaps the point is made. The fact of death is inevitable; what lies beyond?
Well, as any good necromancer knows, the answer is that, upon dying, your soul is bound into your rotting corpse by dark powers, and you are made to serve an old man with a long beard and silly robes. That's what reincarnation is, the necromancers say, a vacation between centuries of undead labor. No magical or theological institutions of note support this theory, but it may be relevant to the results of this investigation.
When I first disguised myself as an undead blight upon the world, I admit that I wasn't expecting much. Oh, I knew that the fun-loving skeletons like Chuckles probably had a deck of cards or something, but my expectations were low. My mission was to find out what the undead did when their vile masters weren't commanding them to bathe in the blood of the innocent, and I could hardly think of any assignment with a worse combination of risk and boredom.
So my surprise at discovering the massive dance hall beneath Battleon may well be reasonable.
Allow me to back up. When I first began tailing groups of wraiths and spooks, my fears appeared confirmed. Mostly, they just mulled about, sometimes standing slack-jawed and stiff of knee for hours. Sometimes they would walk into a wall, only to gaze at the stones. Sometimes they caught fire, but that was actually my fault. I was getting really bored.
Then I stumbled upon the Pit. Or rather, into the Pit. I'd been in the Pit before, with armor and weapons at the ready, and had faced the endless hordes of monsters valiantly, often for two or three minutes before screaming in fear of my life and running back to the sunlit world above. This time, however, I was not attacked.
Various undead monsters were shuffling into one of the labyrinthine caverns, and I opted to follow them. Down, down, down we went, until the rocks grew warm around us, and a sickly orange glow shone from the ends of the other tunnels. It was there, then, that I discovered...
The Danse Macabre
I always thought that was a symbolic name, you know? For the dance of Death, unstoppable and ineffable. Well, it turns out that it has a literal meaning. It is, simply put, the largest dance club I have ever seen, and it is always packed full of clients. The dead engage in every sort of entertainment within- some obviously expert on what they did. Being a fellow of science, I attempted at once to identify trends in the dancers.
Zombies - These are generally the most basic dancers. They prefer to simply spin, or else engage in simple two-steps. They're built for quantity, not quality, and provide spectacle.
Skeletons - Skeletons have a lot more variety than zombies, but are most expert at the Robot. The downside is that they try to make the 'beep' noises as they jive, and end up merely clacking a lot. It's annoying. It's actually really, really annoying.
Ghosts - Ghosts are the heart and soul of the party. They fly into the air and waltz about, high above the other creatures. The result of their filmy, translucent forms passing in front of the chandeliers is strobe lighting, occasionally with a multicolored disco-ball effect.
Banshees - Prefer to sing. Others prefer them not to. Generally kept in their own hall, which is soundproofed. Ten feet of cork.
Demons - Hah! This one's a trick! Demons aren't undead at all! They're just evil spirits from the abyssal planes.
Brilhado - I'm actually not sure if these are really undead. They mostly sulk at tables, and will not eat anything. Strange, I thought the food was fine, even if the meat was oddly sweet.
Ghouls - Ghouls spend a lot of time eying the other dancers hungrily.
THE GRIM REAPER - He's the DJ
Dracoliches - They like the Macarana. They leave a wake of destruction.
Liches - Tend to lack legs, and thus are often forced to just float in place, bobbing their heads.
Deathknights - Often preform the heavy metal songs. Incorporate a lot of 'blasting things and setting them on fire' into their moves.
DoomKnights - Oddly, nobody seems to have invited any. Nobody seems to want to.
It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that the architecture is made of bones, which is why it did surprise me that it wasn't. It was all very tasteful granite and basalt, intermixed with archaic chandeliers and archways. The impression of the place is that of time; when it was that the first undead built the club, nobody can say- it might well have been a thousand years ago, or even more.
Regardless, it was a fine time. I danced with the zombies and skeletons for hours, and it was a fine and wonderful thing. Nobody was judged upon the basis of looks, or species, or relative size (after the dracolich took a shine to me, I rather regret this), state of decay or even corporeality. It was simply a great, endless party; one which shall continue until the end of time.
However, as I write this, hours after I took my leave, I cannot help but wince at the pains in my stomach and the rotten taste in my mouth (was that from the steak or the kisses?). Before the mad dancers and lovebirds of Battleon flock to that dire waltz so many miles below, take this warning:
Do not eat the pudding.
Oh, do not eat it.
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