Two months have passed since the fall of Fort Talos. In that time, different groups of survivors had taken a habit of using those ruins as shelter, or even try and look for any resources that were left.
Unbeknownst to them, something was happening in one of the abandoned areas of the fort, an army was ready to march once more.
Loud footsteps could be heard, followed by something crashing into whatever remained of the walls. An unfortunate soul happened to wander into the old general’s hunting grounds, and was about to-
CRACK
… Has met their end, too slow to outpace the monstrosity guarding those ruins.
The mutated general was about to resume its “guard duty”, when the floor cracked and collapsed, bringing both it and the deceased down into a lower part of the fort.
It quickly got rid of the rubble covering it, a task he got used to in his time here.
It got up, and looked around the room, scanning for an exit, the darkness not affecting him as much compared to his old body.
The room was filled with corpses, most of them atlanteans writhing in pain, unable to move since their bodies had been dealt with long before this thing joined their ranks.
Even so, they still desperately tried to reach the newly acquired corpse, desperate to satisfy that never-ending desire that is going to haunt them for the rest of their existence.
It located an exit, and started to advance towards it, when he noticed a symbol on the fallen debris there.
He felt pride and joy admiring it, the memory of a sense of loyalty towards that kingdom coming back to him, alongside a feeling of sadness towards his incompetence and failure.
… Whatever all that meant, anyways.
While it was stuck in that trance, a hand firmly grabbed the lower side of its body. Alarmed, it turned to attack the intruder, before he stopped himself, seeing that same symbol on a piece of armor that it was wearing.
The atlantean desperately held onto him, not in an attempt to feed itself, but instead trying to not be left behind in that mass grave.
He stood still, watching as more of those things crawled towards him, ignoring the fresh corpse, trying to escape from that darkness.
… It could’ve easily crushed all of them and left, like he already did multiple times in the past, but he decided against it, an old feeling guiding his instincts.
He began to move, not towards the exit, but instead all around the room, a roll call for whoever was ready. More and more latched onto him or those already grabbing him, merging together to not let go of that beacon they all looked up to, the one that came to save them once again.
Some of those atlanteans didn’t bear that same symbol, or anything that looked close to the prideful armor that he saw multiple times, but he let them join anyways.
He stopped, the roll call had ended, and he was now leading a giant mass once more, following him as they always did. The weight was too much for that ruined fort, and the ground collapsed once more, this time, directly into the ocean.
Even still, he guided them to the surface, his duty being simple muscle memory for him. As it emerged from the water, he felt what little sun managed to escape the dark clouds towering over him. His fort was close-by, a decrepit chunk of rocks, compared to its glory days.
He noticed a ship, bearing that same symbol, then he looked back at the mass that became one with him. They were calm, but most of all, they were ready for his orders.
Guided by that same pride he felt before, it roared, a roar so powerful that everyone in the bronze sea could hear it.
No one knew what monstrosity produced that sound, but they all knew what it meant.
It was a war horn, and he was going to make sure that all of the war seas would feel the wrath of his army once again.
… Whatever those feelings meant, it didn’t matter.