"Where in the nine hells am I?"
Speaking aloud to an audience of none, I sat down atop a seat made of pure gold and purple wood soaked thoroughly with black blood.
'...'
Moving to a less soggy seating, I stared at the sight in front of me.
It was a messy dining hall which had been previously inhabited by a few portly zombies and some of those armored undead with skills disproportionate to their more common cousins
Complete with crystal chandeliers shining a soft white light, chairs were left strewn on the ground, thrown around in whatever chaos had previously taken place here
And despite knowing that they were most probably dead, I would like to send my complaints to the chef.
'Who in their right mind prepares a banquet made up of human bodies? It's extremely obvious that they've been infected with madness.'
Keeping an eye on the gruesome meal that the portly undead were previously keen on undertaking so that I wouldn't be ambushed by a suddenly reawakened undead, I made my way to the door opposite where I stood.
Pushing it open, I carefully performed the art of looking both ways before crossing the road and stepped into the halls.
Staring at the corpse laden hallways, I wondered internally all the while pulling back the string of the bow.
'Just what the hell happened here?'
If seen broadly it was obvious that they were infected with the malaise and died of the plague before turning into undead that infected more people, but still.
'But even if there is a plague, why the hell is there a torture room in the middle of the castle?'
It just didn't make sense.
Carefully pushing open the doorway, the harsh stench of iron which had lingered in the halls finally rushed at me all at once.
It was the difference between stepping into a building with air cooled conditioning from the summer's heated air.
I think it was called a temperature spread or something?
Anyways, blood is blood, iron is iron, and this room was filled to the brim with the scent of both.
It was to the point that I activated the flame head I usually kept under wraps.
I usually kept it off due to a few reasons, but the most prominent one was that I didn't want it, it attracted attention (Both types good and bad) and that it erased my sense of smell.
Placing someone with eyes in a dark place caused them to be so much more sensitive to light, so if I perpetually kept the flaming head on, the very moment I turned it off I would be in a world of pain.
Feeling as if someone had just shoved smelling salts into the nose, it wasn't particularly pleasant.
But since it turned off my sense of smell, it was a smart decision on my part because as soon as I fully stepped into the room, a thick haze filled the air, dyeing it crimson.
The source of it all?
A gigantic crimson basin filled to the brim with, you guessed it, blood.
It was morbidly impressive how much blood there was.
Carefully stepping into the room, I navigated the edges of the bloody basin and continued to make observations of this room.
For one, just like everything else in the castle, the ceiling was needlessly high. but unlike everything else in the castle but very much like the prison, chains hung from the ceiling.
If there was a difference from the chains in the prison, it was that these were meat hooks with bodies of all shapes and sizes on them.
'I forgot to mention definitely not human.'
Staring at the unidentifiable bodies of definite inhuman origin, I ignored the fact that human limbs poked out of the unidentifiable red meat balls dripping blood.
'Ok I can't ignore it.'
Rubbing my forehead at the headache that was tormenting it, I wondered why in the hell is there a butcher room meant for people?
How did I find out this was a butcher room you may ask?
Well, it doesn't exactly leave much up to the imagination when there is a damn kitchen adjacent to this place.
'But I guess I now know where the source of the human bodies in the dining hall came from.'
Still staring at the bleeding racks of meat, a sound caught my attention causing me to instinctively find a wall to cling to.
Hugging it and ignoring the instant dampness clinging to my back, I grabbed a piece of cloth and swiftly tied it around my head, covering the light and only exposing my eyes.
Despite seemingly made of black fire, the black fire was incapable of burning through anything.
It carried a subtle heat to it though but that was something I would get to another time.
Right now, I was more focused on what was in front of me.
Walking through the kitchen, an undead appeared because what else would? A normal sane person? Impossible.
I'm pretty sure that medieval people had lines that they didn't cross, and cannibalism was one of them.
Anyways.
Carefully straining my neck, with most of my body hidden behind one of the pillars holding the roof up, the undead slowly carried a ladder and basket.
Clad in a european maid costume that was surprisingly prevalent in the modern ages, the open hole in their stomach told me how they died and probably got infected.
Placing both of them on the ground, they undead began to climb the ladder with surprisingly dexterous movements.
It was still slow, but it at least seemed like it wouldn't get tangled up in the ladder frame.
Hands gripping at the edges, the zombie with a gaunt demeanor raised both of its rotting arms, the flesh haven given way to reveal bone as their fingers curled around one of the meat lumps hanging off of the hooks.
And as their fingers gripped the flesh, they tore it off of the meat hook with the inhuman undead strength of theirs, the thin frame belying the strength within their rotting body.
Placing it underneath one of their arms, blood instantly began to seep out from where their body made contact, soaking the dress that they wore crimson.
But as if it weren't even something to worry about, the zombie climbed down the ladder and placed the chunk of meat in the basket before picking it up and walking straight back where they came.
And what was I doing as the witness to this?
Well it wouldn't be a lie to say I was not be interested.
Where else would you see a zombie not patrolling a place in the hopes of killing someone after all?
Especially since this maid zombie seemed to be performing their actions as if mirroring their last duties before their death.
It hinted at something, but until I found out some more, I wouldn't know what that something was.
'And now that I think about it, weren't those fat zombies just feasting in the dining hall instead of roaming around?'
Slowly navigating past the basin of blood, I put together the clues that I had found in my mind, realising something in the process.
The Iron Order that were comprised solely of guards keeping the order in the prisoner's quarters.
The Bronze order that were also solely comprised of guards meant to prevent escapees from climbing over the ramparts.
The Silver order that were no doubt guards only and were meant to protect the cities or villages or whatnot.
The Golden Order that guarded the castle.
Four orders in total, three I had the pleasure of meeting and greeting violently, all guards that were patrolling their respective areas.
But if I looked past the orders that patrolled the areas in groups of three or more there were still lone undead that periodically appeared.
'What if these lone undead weren't guards but were just people separated from the group before getting infected?'
If that was the case, if I recall it correctly, weren't those giant skeletons protecting the fancily dressed zombies with the help of other well armed undead?
If I ignored them, would they have just continued repeating their meaningless actions that they performed before death?
No, if my conjecture was correct, these undead weren't just emulating their last actions before death.
My eyes flashed with realization.
They were actually acting as if they were still completely alive.
'Would you look at that, a disease that not only reanimated the infected host so that they could infect more people, it even made it so that they repeated their actions as if they weren't even infected in the first place.'
I subtly wiped the metaphorical sweat from my forehead. 'Thank the Death God that they aren't smart enough to use this to infect more people, I wouldn't even have anyone to talk to if they did.'
Still following the maid zombie carrying the fleshy lump, I paused at the threshold separating the kitchen and the blood basin room and moved my gaze between them
'But if that's actually the case, how far back do they emulate their previous actions? And to what extent?'
Staring at the blood basin room that seemed to serve as a room to drain blood from corpses, I wondered how long this room had been repurposed to drain human bodies.
If it was from before the malaise started infecting people then this kingdom was a darker place than I had initially imagined.
But if it was from after the malaise started infecting people causing the inhabitants of High Peak Castle to resort to cannibalism as a way to survive...
Let's just hope that its the latter case but there's not much hope
What use would a blood letting room in the center of the castle be for animals hunted in the outside forests?
I silently followed behind the Maid.
+++
Tree that is stressing the fuck out due to exams