Pestilence: Rise Of The Pure Undead

Setting his prosthetic foot upon the frozen lake, Alkayne could tell that the water was frozen deep, putting into further questions why the Schneebiest's plateau only had had such a thin layer, in any case, as per usual a strong blizzard was obstructing regular sight, the wind was howling, and his fortress was just out of sight, looking up, he could see the very cliff near it that had allowed him to spot these livings in the first place.

"Remember, no death tongue and try to appear as friendly as possible" spoke the minor lord.

"Sir, yes, Sir!" they all responded in unison, he had taken with him a few of his troops, soldiers and two of his knights, who had yet to get an occasion to do much as the threats encountered until now did not warrant the intervention of anyone above the level of footsoldiers, who were all elites as well.

"Ah, Mister Alkayne- I mean, my dear husband! There is no need to worry about their food supply, I can see fish below the ice… When I left there were basically none left, but look at that!" Jiji basically crawled around peeking through the frozen water, the zombie did not need to use his sight to know that there indeed was an abundance of fish swimming around, they were thriving under there, and not only that, but none of these seemed especially dangerous.

In fact, Alkayne determined that they were all regular animals, no monsters or powerful beasts lived in the lake, or at least, anywhere near where the undead currently stood.

The ice could easily support all of their combined weight without doing as much as let out a single cracking sound, in fact, the minor lord would really need to try to break through it, which he wasn't even planning on doing, although that made him wonder how long it took the kalts to make a hole through this thing and fish, considering the temperature, the hole would need to be watched over so as to not let it freeze solid again.

As they approached the first signs of habitations and life, Alkayne handed his halberd to a soldier behind him and walked further in the front accompanied by Jiji, soon, two silhouettes appeared through the blizzard, both were seating on some packed snow, using translucent fishing rods as they were just waiting for something to grab unto the hook.

'Those ice-like trees really are their version of wood, huh?' they probably knew a way to treat the raw material as when collecting samples, trees and other icy plants would often break like they were actually made entirely from ice, whilst these rods clearly possessed wood-like flexibility.

'Ice as building material, the architects will come up with even more nonsense…' Alkayne and Jiji got awfully close to the two fishermen, one of which was clearly sleeping and the other so utterly focused on what he was doing that he failed to notice a huge zombie in heavy armour walking within arm's reach.

The two men were dressed in the same manner as Jiji, draped in thick and heavy clothing, although only the nun sported an attire with that weirdly warm fabric despite its thinness as well, they only had the white fur of various different beasts sewn together and some lesser fabric they wrapped their heads, only barely allowing their icy eyes to peek through.

"Excuse me" doing his best impression of a non-threatening tone, Alkayne's voice still sounded awfully deep, startling the kalt, but not quite enough for him to let go of his fishing rod.

"Dame-Sommer's ti- Jiji?!" naturally focused on the domineering first, the living instantly became confused instead as he saw the nun.

"We thought for sure that you were dead meat!" he exclaimed "Who's that?" he then rapidly said, taking a good look at the zombie's face, his first assumption wasn't that he was literally a corpse but just that he had forgotten to protect his face and some bits had frozen off.

"Ah, did the church have a noble paladin?" he didn't even wait for an answer and just made stuff up himself, after all, only paladins of the monastery had any sort of armour, so even if it looked nothing like it, the natural assumption was that Alkayne was just a holy warrior that had been staying in a church.

Meanwhile, Jiji rubbed her chin in thought, her and the kalt just staring at one another in abject silence, the wind being the only participant to the conversation as it kept on howling, the sleeping living had not even looked like his slumber had been disturbed in the least.

"Who are you again?" she ended up asking, prompting the man to pull his face gear off for a moment and show his face, looking a bit outraged that she didn't remember him when he recognised her on the spot.

"Jal, I am your brother for Dame-Sommer's sake!"

"Oooh… What happened to your face? You look so… Mature?" last time she had seen this fellow, he had been even smaller than her, now, he was a tall young man.

"Talk about a growth spurt"

"Growth spurt? Jiji, it's been ten years"

"You mean two or three, right?"

"Ten, as in a one and a zero put together, superior to nine and inferior to eleven, ten"

"Don't flex your mathematics on me- Ten years?! I am old?!" she pulled her face coverings as well.

"You haven't changed at all" remarked her brother, which was probably why he had managed to recognise her immediately, he could literally overlap his last memory of his sister and her now without spotting a single difference.

"Damn, it must be Dame-Sommer's doing, what a loving deity…" giving a prayer to the goddess, the nun cleared her throat and grabbed Alkayne's hand, as despite the impression their conversation gave, he was still here.

"Jal, I present to you your brother-in-law, Alkayne, my husband" she said proudly, Jal looked up at the zombie then down at his sister, such a big guy with his sister did not look right at all, but he did not bring it up just yet.

"You picked up a heissbloom?"

"I did"

"So, you are not a member of the church?"

"I am not, I come from beyond the mountains" replied Alkayne, not sure anyone would buy that he showed up through a portal and that there was a much wider world beside this one.

"I see… Let's go home shall we?" he offered, absolutely having to let the rest of the family know, hell, the entire village should know.

"A blessed one! It hadn't happened in… Well since Sir Janus!" the brother exclaimed as he hit his fishing companion across the head to wake him up.

"Old man, get someone to go to the Grand Monastery, we have a blessed one-" the brother turned to Alkayne "-Can you demonstrate?"

Feeling the sudden warmth being exuded, the two kalts acted like a light had blinded them.

"So it has been ten years since the curse began spreading?" the minor lord asked Jiji.

"Well… Looks like it, I could have sworn it hadn't been so long!" the zombie was starting to think that even being cursed a little bit had had more severe consequences than an extra tooth growing.