The Judged

Alaric must humble himself in exchange for aid from an old friend.

 

Credits:

Alaric Von Beller - George Ledoux

Falk-Ghoul - Matthew Curtis

Bo-Ghoul - Damon Alums

 

Website: http://DeadhausSonata.com

Discord: https://discord.gg/XjUXa4v

Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/DeadhausGame

Created by Apocalypse Studios

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Last day of the 12th month,
220 yearsafter Amarax pledged himself to Deadhaus.
For many nightsI have held discourse with the archliche,
and much has been divulgedto me of the house of the dead.
While it has always appeared to meas a monolithic force,
this could not be farther from the truth.

(00:25):
Deadhausis comprised of many individual wills.
Some serve mindlessly, while others seembarely constrained to the greater whole.
It is an alliance of darkand ancient forces,
often with conflicting agendas, all unitedbeneath a religious superstructure.
An inspection of the highest levelsof organization within Deadhaus

(00:49):
reveals several distinct factions,each with their own specific function.
The military of Deadhaus,which is the only branch Thacea has ever
seen, is known as the Shambling Hordes.
The bulk of it is made of whatthe archliche refers to as the reanimated.
These are created by liches

(01:10):
who tear souls from the realm of the deadand forcibly bind them to corpses.
Left to their own devices,the reanimated are mostly harmless.
In most cases, they wander aimlessly
until their bodies disintegrateto the flies and elements.
But liches can compelthese mindless corpses into battle.

(01:31):
More specifically,they can compel the souls within them,
which in turn compelstheir rotting flesh to battle.
When I asked the archlicheif any soul could deny his command,
his only answer was, “they can try.”
There are other undeadbesides the reanimated and liches
within the Shambling Hordes,as the only prerequisite

(01:54):
for marching with them is the ability,if not the desire, to serve.
Revenants are drawn to this faction
more than any otherfor their warlike nature, but ghouls
also attach themselves to the hordesin greater number than other factions.
Where the Shambling Hordes march,
ghouls tend to follow,hoping to scavenge abandoned battlefields.

(02:18):
But sometimes revenants will feedfallen survivors to the trailing ghouls,
who learn that there are better mealsto be had
by marching with the hordes directly.
Much to my surprise, Amarax claimed
the use of the Shambling Hordesis typically a last resort.
Deadhaus would much rather deal

(02:38):
with an enemy from the shadowsthan commit its military resources,
which he astoundingly claims are spreadthin.
This is why there are two factionsdevoted to subterfuge.
The first faction Deadhaus sendsto interact with outside forces
is known as the Darklight Enclave.

(02:58):
Its purpose is to gather informationunseen,
or if need be, to assassinatea high priority target.
The Darklight Enclave is mostlymade up of wraiths,
though it is suspectedthat there are other undead among them.
I say suspectedbecause that is the word Amarax used.

(03:19):
Apparently, the Darklight Enclave
does not spy only on outside forces.
I was also informed that the Thaceanswho managed to cross
the Deadhaus Gate by land were dealtwith by these wraiths,
for they serve as silent sentinelsalong the boundaries of the dead.
If ever a human should seeone of the undead,

(03:40):
chances are a wraith has seen them first.
When I inquired as to the
wraith that accosted me in the capitaltwo years ago, Amarax revealed
that the Darklight Enclave had marked mefor assassination.
There was concern within Deadhausthat Amarax had opened a channel
by which I might glean his secretswhen he bound our eyes.

(04:04):
Apparently, with the requisite knowledge,
I could have seen through his eyesas easily as he saw through mine.
He assured them that I did not possesssuch knowledge,
but they fearedI might acquire it in my search.
For these past two years,
he has been concealing my presencefrom the Darklight Enclave,

(04:25):
just as he has concealed from them
the fact that I did see a visionthrough his eyes once--though
this was in a dream, where mortals knowtruths unremembered in the waking world.
My close encounter with the wraithin the capital, he explained, was due
to a “lapse in attention” on his partthat was unlikely to occur again.

(04:47):
I take
little comfort in such assurances,however, especially given
that I was also assured the wraiths “mostcertainly” know how to destroy vampires.
The second faction devoted tosubterfuge is the Faceless Court.
This is an assembly of vampiresthat use their guile and glamor

(05:07):
to infiltrate the enemies of Deadhaus,a function
which vampires alone are suited to.
While they often work in tandemwith the Darklight
Enclave, passing informationfor the wraiths to carry back to Deadhaus,
the Faceless Court’sprimary purpose is subversion.
They whisper in the ears of leadersand rebels, sewing seeds of doubt

(05:31):
and confusion, spreading misinformationand sparking uprisings.
Whereveran enemy is susceptible to subversion,
Deadhaus prefers the Faceless Courtto the Shambling Hordes,
as entire citieshave been toppled by their honeyed words.
Sigstrand was one such city.

(05:52):
This is why they sent no aid to Beller
when we called for it so long ago.
This is why the Beltlands rebelled
against the Northern Provincesin the War of the Yoke.
It is why the Thaceans were seducedto secede when Ustilia fell.
It was all a grand orchestration…

(06:12):
the darkest impulses of manbestirred by whispers from faces
worn as masks for the dead,corroding us from within.
Other factions within Deadhaus have little
to no dealings with the outside world.
Corpus Artificum is a sort of craftsmen’sguild among the dead.

(06:32):
They oversee the buildingof all structures, forging of all weapons,
and assembly of all mechanismsDeadhaus might need.
They are also keepers of history,
which they see as a sacred duty…
perhaps that is why their factionalone is named in Ustilian.
Like the
Shambling Hordes, any kind of undeadmay join Corpus Artificum,

(06:57):
so long as they are capableof some sort of craftsmanship.
But how do the dead keep their history?
Even the most well crafted and well keptbooks break down over enough centuries,
and even centuries are meaninglessincrements next to the eternal.
And memory is too dangerousa vessel for history,

(07:19):
for even if its ink never faded,
the fleshthat bound it could still be destroyed.
So instead of words and books,the archeliche told me,
Deadhaus keeps history in stone,
and not just any stone,but the same kind from which Way
Stones are crafted,a material known as aevitanium.

(07:41):
And Way Stones… Deadhausdoes not know where they came from.
They were therebefore their oldest records.
Amarax describes them
as doors between worlds.
He says that to step through a WayStone is to leave Malorum.
Some of them lead to the other celestialspheres, and some lead far beyond that.

(08:06):
Through the Way Stones,there are paths that lead to where
aevitanium may be found,far beyond the ninth sphere.
When this material is returnedto Malorum, Corpus Artificum
then shapes it into obelisks and engravesthose obelisks with historical records,
whereuponthey become known as a Lore Stone.

(08:30):
And just as the positionof celestial spheres can open the Way
Stones, an injection of magick can openthe Lore Stones.
One cannot cross through the Lore Stonesas one does the Way Stones,
but one can gazethrough them into the past.
This way, history can be observedas its events

(08:51):
unfolded, however long agothey might have transpired.
Of course, the engravings must be true,
must accurately depict what happened,or the Lore Stone will not open.
This means that the
vision I saw through the eyes of Amarax,that of the lightless
chamber of countlesspillars, was in fact a sort of library.

(09:16):
Each of the pillars was a Lore Stone,
each capable of gazingupon some moment in the past.
I mentioned earlier that Deadhaus
was ultimately a religious superstructure.
This religion, which they call the Pale
Doctrine, is conveyed to themthrough the Death’s Head Coven.

(09:39):
This faction is only 12 banshees
that are rarely seenoutside their temples.
The dead come to them to hear prophecies,
or receive instructionin what they call “the rituals,”
which as far as I can tellare synonymous with law.
One of the few things that will provokethe sisters of the Death’s Head

(10:01):
Coven to leave their temples iswhen an undead has violated the rituals.
When that happens,reprisal is nearly immediate,
no matter how far awaythe offending undead might be.
To violate the rituals
is to be struck downto a lower rung on the caste system

(10:21):
to which all undead belongwithin Deadhaus.
At the very highest are the Sovereign,
who are so namedfor their acquisition of great power,
whether that be in the form of knowledge,might, influence,
anything that makes themespecially valuable to Deadhaus.
The Sovereign alone may sit

(10:43):
as leaders in the aforementioned factions,though
there is a great range of authorityand power from one sovereign to the next.
Beneath the sovereign are the Sentient.
These are the dead that are self aware,
capable of complex thought.
They are protected under the rituals,as no undead may harm another

(11:05):
that is at least Sentient, butthey may not hold positions of leadership.
At the very bottom are the Servitors,the undead that are mindless,
or whose minds are too simpleto be recognized as Sentient.
If an undead should damage a Servitor,
then restitution is owed to the onewho owned it, as defined in the rituals.

(11:28):
If a Servitor should damage a Sentient,
then responsibility lieswith that Servitor’s owner.
It is possible, through great effort,
that a Sentient may become Sovereign.
I was told also, though very rare,
that Servitorsdo sometimes gain sentience,
at which point they receive protectionthrough the rituals.

(11:52):
And, as I mentioned before,it is through the violation
of these rituals that a Sovereigncan be stripped of its title,
just as a Sentientmay be stripped of its will.
Yet as terrifying such a fate might be,
violations of the ritualsare not unheard of.
There is crime within Deadhaus,if you want to call it that.

(12:15):
By defying the will of the
Darklight Enclave,Amarax has violated the rituals.
His violationhas simply not been discovered as of yet.
And what am I to make of my desiccatedguide of Deadhaus?
He answers anything I ask of him,pausing, expanding,
or rewording as many timesas I might need… but why?

(12:40):
To gain my trust, I suppose,to make me think I can trust him.
I say him because of the way
his voice soundswhen it echoes in my thoughts,
but Amarax himself does not knowwhether he was a man or woman in life.
He considers it an irrelevant detail.

(13:01):
Man and woman are aspects of life,
he says, mechanisms of procreation.
Death has no need of such distinction.
It is opposite to life.
And yet, he had no answer forwhy banshees are clearly women,
nor why, as he informed me,that revenants are always men.

(13:21):
And I have seen and read of vampiresboth man and woman,
but againthe archelich had no comment on this.
The whole matter seems beneath his notice,as is anything removed from magick.
His knowledgeand interests are specialized
to the point of obsession--whathe knows, he knows in explicit detail--but

(13:43):
most other subjects disinterest himto the point that he simply forgets.
This is because his memory,like the rest of him,
is a function of conscious will.
A liche doesnot remember the way mortals do,
by reflexiveimprinting of memory upon the brain.
Amarax has no brain; his skull is hollow,

(14:05):
and so instead he encodes what he wishesto remember through magick.
He binds the memoriesto his consciousness,
which itself is sustained by magick,and may release them
to make room for other knowledgeshould he so desire.
He has releasedmost of the memories of who he was
before he was a liche,including how long he has been one.

(14:29):
“One century
is much like another… and another,”he said.
What he knows of Deadhausis incidental in a way.
He knows of it because it helps himfurther his own goals, but I doubt
he would even care if it were destroyed,except that it might
delay his research.
He was offered leadership positionsin various factions,

(14:52):
his caste being Sovereign,but declined them
because he “could not be botheredwith such tedium.”
Once he was even offereda seat on the Pentarchy,
a body of five rulers,one pentarch to represent each faction.
Together they decide the path of Deadhausas a whole,
but again, Amarax was disinterested.

(15:15):
If other liches are like this,and I suspect
they might be,then this is a definite weakness.
Not only would they be unlikelyto hold leadership positions,
but they would be disconnectedfrom Deadhaus
in a waythat makes them almost a liability.
It may be that the most effective wayto begin

(15:36):
destroyingDeadhaus is to target the liches first.
Giventheir tendency to isolate themselves,
how many could be destroyedbefore Deadhaus even noticed?
And by then it would be weakened,for the Sentient dead are few,
and of those only some are liches.
But the destruction of Deadhausis a matter for another night.

(15:59):
There is still muchI must learn, and from sources
other than the archliche, no doubt.
Afterhe had satisfied my initial questions,
he informed me of my first task in the waragainst the Awakened.
Well, I suppose technically it’sa much larger war than that,
but for my purposesthe Awakened are the only enemy I need

(16:21):
concern myself with… besides Deadhaus.
My first taskwas to retrieve an object for the liche,
something he calls a Soul Prism.
This object, a sort of crystalas he described it, must be extracted
from one of the Pillars of Malorum,which lie far below the surface.

(16:42):
To reach them, I would need to enlistthe aid of the ghouls,
which I would find in their moundto the northeast,
beneath the mountainsthat flank Deadhaus Gate.
They would guide me to the pillar,
but I would need to be the oneto extract the Soul Prism,
as silence was of the essencefor such an undertaking…

(17:05):
thoughwhy he would not say, other than one
must tread lightlyin the darkness of the depths.
As for why he needed the prism,
the archliche said he would explainwhen I returned.
And so I waited for the sun to set
and left the great spinal columns behind.
I moved through forests and clearingsas swift and silent as a shadow,

(17:29):
having grown somewhat more accustomedto the speed of which I am capable.
With only brief pauses to orient myself,I am now able to cover distances
far greater than I ever could in life,even on horseback, and in less time.
Of course, I do not see much of the worldwhen moving at such speeds.

(17:50):
It blurs pastme, trees and hills and stones
melting together in streams of color--
only the stars remain fixed--but
the blood avoidsall obstacles effortlessly.
It did not take
long in my journey northfor the charnel fetor of the ghoul mound
to assail my senses, and I resolved to

(18:12):
cease breathing as soon as I had found it.
I began to move more cautiouslyas the stench deepened,
unsure of what would await me.
Certainly ghouls,but how would they respond to me?
Amarax had said I need only mention
his name, and I would be granted passage,
but there is no tellingwith these creatures.

(18:34):
I found at last a low openingat the base of the mountain, a wide mouth
from which the horrid stench bellowed,its throat
a tunnel raked with claw marks.
I stooped and peered inside.
Empty.
Seeing little other choicethan to move forward,
I hunched down and crept into the tunnel.

(18:55):
For a time,I moved soundlessly and alone,
but at length I heard a sharp soundechoing through the tunnels,
a frantic sniffing,and it was growing louder.
I stopped moving,
hoping that my intrusionwould not raise an alarm.
Soon after,a ghoul came clambering down the tunnel

(19:18):
unimpeded by the low ceilingas it went on all fours.
There were some similarities betweenthis school and the one I captured.
The general underlying structureremains the same.
It was deformed, twisted and elongatedlike the other ghoul,
but was the one I captured was coveredin tattered flesh that hung from its body

(19:42):
in shreds, exposing bloodied sinewand yellowed bones beneath
this ghoul was clad in bizarre armor.
As it drew closer, I realized thatthis armor was in fact part of the ghoul
itself.
Its bones had overgrownmuch of its body like a chitinous shell.

(20:04):
Spinyprotrusions jutted out along its back,
and much of its head was encased insomething like a second
overgrown skullthat flared into a crest toward the back.
It clattered as it clambered,sniffing along the ground from nasal slits
that were the only openingsin its skeletal faceplate.

(20:24):
"Vampire," It
said, coming to a halta short distance from me.
“Not welcome,
no.” “I was
told to come here.” “Told wrong.”
“Amarax sent me.”

(20:45):
It rattled in its throat,
but said nothing.“If you’re listening, I could use some help here,”
I thought to myself,but there was no answer.
“Well…”I began, wondering what might happen
if I simply ran past the ghoul.
“I am here to help Deadhaus.” “Notwelcome,”

(21:07):
it said, and turned to clamber backthe way it came.
“Well, I’m not going to leave,”I called after it,
but it ignoredme, clattering away down the tunnel.
“Wait!
I need your help!”I began following the ghoul.
“What is your name?” “We are ghoul,”

(21:31):
it said, not looking at me as it moved.
“Which ghoul are you?”
I reworded the question,remembering the way the other was named.
“We are Bo-Ghoul,”
it answered,
rounding a portion of the tunnelso that it slipped out of sight.
I hastened my paceto keep up with the armored ghoul,

(21:53):
but as soon as I came around the corner,it was gone.
Then,no sooner had I taken a few steps forward
did I hear the tunnel floorshudder behind me.
The armored ghoulburst up from beneath the soil and clasped
its claws around my ankles,yanking them out from under me.
Once I was flattened, another pairof claws erupted from the tunnel

(22:16):
near my head and seized my wrists.
I struggled to loose myself,
but quickly realized it was no use.
Even as a vampire, I found
ghouls to be impossibly strong.
“I supposeI should’ve seen this coming,”.
“Vampire is simple, yes.

(22:39):
Does not know what welcome means.”
“I know what it means!” “Only
ghouls pass into the mound… or food…
and vampire is no ghoul…”
The armored ghoulstretched itself over me,

(23:02):
a single claw grippingmy chest as I might grip an apple.
I saw the nasal slits beneath itsmask of bone flaring, and strangely enough
I felt my blood recoil from the creature’smouth.
“Wait!” I shouted as the ghoul drew
its gaping maw closer,and to my surprise, it leaned back.

(23:25):
“I know Falk-Ghoul!”It was the only thing that came to mind,
given that this ghoul either did not knowor did not care
who Amarax was and seemedto have no interest in Deadhaus.
At the sound of this name,the armored ghoul tilted its head.
“Friend of Falk-Ghoul?”

(23:48):
The ghoul brought its jawsmere inches from my face,
and I could see a crude symbol of three
curved lines etched into its white mask,
just between the eyeless pitsthat lay beneath.
“Yes… yes, great friends!
He would be distraughtif you were to harm me!”
“Distraught?” Angry, upset, sad.

(24:15):
It tilted its head in the other direction,
clicking deep in its throatas it considered what I had said.
“We will see.”
At this, the claws that grasped my wristsreleased me, and the armored ghoul
began to drag me by my anklesdown the tunnel. “I can walk!

(24:36):
I will go willingly!”, but it ignored me,
pulling me alongwithout so much as glancing back.
I watched the tunnelsflow past me, winding and branching
so that I had no chanceof finding my way out again on my own,
but the ghoul seemed to knowwhere it was going.
Now and then it would pause to smellsomething, some patch of dirt or other,

(24:59):
nothing that I could discern,
and then abruptly it would jerk me onward.
Sometimes other ghouls would pass usin the tunnels.
I could hear themsniffing in my general direction.
Then they would click in their throats,
the armored ghoul would click back,and they would move on.

(25:20):
After a few such encounters,
I recognized a sort of patternin the clicks.
Those of the passingghouls were rapid and fluctuating,
but the armored ghoulalways made the same sound back,
a throaty hiss followed by three clicks.
I suspect they were communicating

(25:41):
something, a question and answer.
I noticed, too, that the tunnelswere gently sloping downward
as I was dragged further,and eventually the soil and stone
gave way to another material,something smooth, almost wax-like.
Enclosed as they were, the tunnels lay inutter darkness, but with my vampiric

(26:05):
sight I could still discern shapesand shades, though only in tones of gray.
As it was,
I could see the gradual lighteningof the tunnel walls and began to notice
strange flowing lines, groove-likeformations that ran their length.
At last, these strange tunnelsopened into a chamber

(26:27):
large enoughthat I could not see the top of it.
Here too the walls and floor
were coated in the swirling,wax-like substance, which also hung
in thick cords that stretched acrossthe length of the room, crisscrossing
so that they formed a tanglednet of waxen rope.
And along these lengths of cordI beheld the hunched and twisted

(26:50):
shapes of ghoulsclimbing, as well along the walls.
Here and there I saw them retching,and their vomit
was excreted as pulp onto the walls,
or floor, or cords,and they would mold this pulp
with their misshapen handsto form ever more of their mound.
The walls here were riddledwith openings,

(27:12):
and ghouls cameand went through so many passages,
clickingand hissing to one another in such number
that the mound itselftrembled, the guttural
croaking of an enormous throatthat had swallowed me whole.
Some of
the ghouls carried corpses,or pieces of corpses,
slung over their backsor clutched in their jaws.

(27:35):
They did not devour their cargo,as I might have expected them to,
but whisked it away to other tunnels.
Some carried other materials,
great stones, great chunks of ore,of which they could manage
quite a cartload by their enormous handsand jaws alone.
Still others bore scoops of dirt,and though streams of ghouls

(27:58):
ran up and down and back and forthand intersected again and again,
never did they collide, nor even slow.
This would be quite a feat for the living,who have eyes to guide them,
but the ghouls managed thisfrenetic efficiency by scent alone.
The armored ghoul dragged meinto one of the many openings

(28:20):
lining this central chamber,and I was taken at length past
another chamberthat revealed a more gruesome industry.
Here, the walls, and floor,and ceiling were interwoven
with a lattice of hexagonal cavities,
roughly the size of wine casks.
Many of these cavities were coveredwith a waxy coating,

(28:43):
concealing their contents,but a few were empty.
It was to this chamber that the corpseswere brought, to a group of ghouls
that hunched in a circle,clicking rapidly to one another.
I watched
as they dismantled the deadwith their massive jaws,
methodically removing and dividingeach limb, each head, each torso.

(29:07):
Each componentwas then sorted into a pile of its like,
and these piles were carried,piece by piece
to the uncovered cavities.
Thankfully, I was dragged
past this macabre larder before too long
and brought at last to the chamberwhere the armored ghoul came to a rest.

(29:29):
Cautiously, I raised up on my elbows,
but I could not distinguishanything of note.
So many of these tunnels and chamberswere indiscernible from one another,
a disorienting samenessthat was exacerbated
by the ever swirling linesof ghoulish resin.
This was not a placethat was made to be navigated

(29:50):
by sight.
“Well, well,
well…”
A familiar voice rose from the darkness.
"Look who’s come crawling
to the ghouls.”I saw it then, crawling down

(30:11):
from the ceiling, onto the walls,and finally the floor.
It circled around toward my headuntil its horrid face was hung
just above mine,each upside down to the other.
“If it isn’t Alaric von Beller,
Grand Inquisitor…
of the ashes.”

(30:34):
“That is not my name any longer,
nor is it my title.” "Oh...
give us your name then.”
“I am Alaric the Damned.”
The ghoul’s gaping maw twisted slightly.
Could this have been a smile?
“So… you have learned your name at last.”

(30:58):
“I suppose you’ll tell me you knew itall along.”
“We told you…
we told you.” “Thenperhaps you already know why I’m here.”
"Perhaps..." Just then,the armored ghoul made a series of clicks
in its throat.

(31:20):
“Slow-speak, for our guest.”
"Vampire wants to feed us,”
the armored ghoul spoke in wordsI could recognize.
“I most certainly do not!
And this is no way to treat a guest!”

(31:40):
“Alaric speaks the truth…
take him to his suite,”
and I was immediately yanked
so that my head struck the floorand dragged away.
Falk-Ghoul followed along, its headbobbing quite near to mine
as itcrawled. “I can walk to the suite,

(32:00):
damn you!” “Vampire can slide."
Bo-Ghoul answered without looking back.
“I never thought I would meet a creaturemore wretched than you,”
I said to Falk-Ghoul through my teeth.
“Vampire is distraught.”

(32:21):
After a time, the dragging ceased,
and I was promptly seized by the chestand tossed like a sack of potatoes.
I struck a metallic surfaceand rebounded to the waxen floor.
Before I could right myself, I heardthe sharp click of a metal latch close.
I then realized I was in a cage.

(32:43):
As I stepped forward and gripped the bars,
I realized it wasn’t just any cage.
“Dead man’s iron…
specially crafted at Ft.
Serenus,”
Falk-Ghoul said,
watching me through the bars."How?" “Payment

(33:05):
from the liche.” “The liche!
Amarax, he sent me here!” “Another favor?”
“Yes.
He wants a Soul Prism.”
“Big favor,”
“Big payment,”
“Yes”“He told me you would help me find it.”

(33:30):
“Amarax assumes… But we have never tasted
a vampire…”
Hearing this,
Bo-Ghoul rattled in its throat.“You can’t harm me--the rituals
do not allowit.” “The rituals are for Deadhaus.”

(33:53):
“I am here to help Deadhaus!”
“You are here to help yourself,
always.” “Vampires always lie,”
“This one lies even to himself.”
“Fine, you want the truth?
I’m going to destroy Deahaus.

(34:14):
But first I’m going to destroy theAwakened, because they destroyed Thacea.
I could not protect it,but I can damn well avenge it,
and then I’m comingfor you, for all of you.”
“The truth
shall set you free, Alaric the Damned,”

(34:35):
“Then… you’ll let me out of this
cage.” "Oh, no, no.
You can be free inside the cage.” “Then
what do you want?”
“We are not certain just yet.

(34:56):
The ghouls must sing
and together decide, yes.”
I slumped back against the barsof my cage,
overgrown with ghoul’s wax from the wall.
I could not consciously make myselfinto mist, though even if I could,
I would not know how to returnto physical form.

(35:18):
For the time being,
I was trapped.-Alaric the Damned