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[b][i]The Grey Road, West Ironmarch, 17th Heroic Age (17HA:13)[/b][/i]
[i]Arc 1: Without Faith - I[/i]

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The dreary fog, drenched mud, drenched paved stone and merciless rain of yet another Ironmarch morning was all that signified the arrival of men from the old western “Crusaders” road to Ironmarch, welcoming all those from the west to the new reality of the borderlands. The milestones had since been eroded away, and the signs destroyed. Skeletons of dead animals and occasionally a human being now acted as landmarks to determine distance.

Beside the road was a single barred wagon, holding within a band of chained, weathered and broken prisoners. A Single woman sat within, in the corner silently glaring upon the floor, dirty face obscured by filthy tangled dark hair. The voices were still speaking. She still heard the voices. The darkness whispers. She was an astralomancer, trained and though young, experienced, now imprisoned. 

The voices. She heard voices. They came to her, they whispered and whispered. She was a magi, a herbalist and a camp follower of numerous crusaders. 

Dreams, she saw dreams half remembered, growing in clarity every cycle of the sun and moon. She had fought and helped fight for too long.

Darkness, it had taken her, and there was no hope.

“I submit to thy saviour O’Justice” a fellow prisoner begun mumbling, calling for Justinian’s salvation.

“Without thy will I become dust” Another spoke.

“Without thy strength I shalt fall” Yet another spoke, with almost fanatical zeal.

“Without thy faith, I am lost” The women finished the prayer, dejected and empty. The whispers grated at her mind. Creeping along her skull. 

“I am lost!” An old man on the opposite side of the wagon screamed. 

“Lost! Lost lost lost, lost, lost-lost-lost-lost---“The old man yelled hysterically, bashing his head against the bars, forcing the exhausted and half asleep guard outside awake.

“SILENCE!” the guard shouted, bashing an axe against the wagons bars. The inhabitants of the wagon went silent or returned to quiet mumbling. The woman however glared at the guard, her bloodshot eyes filled with silent madness. If it were not for the mages defending the wagon and the whispers that ate at her mind, she would have easy killed the foolish man and left.

The guard, now sensing his imminent demise quickly withdrew, quietly walking back towards the camp. He moved to speak with the mages sitting by the smouldering and near dead fire, however before he could speak excuses to swap the guard early, the mages suddenly all stood with sudden alarm. 

“Up! Everyone up!” One yelled, just as a loud horn blew in the distance. The horn had done more work waking the camp than the man yelling, and dozens of soldiers were rushing forward. The prisoners had also become alert, many of them shouting gibberish and clawing their hands through the bars. 

Two horsemen appeared, galloping down the road from the direction they had come. Two mounted sergeant acting outriders, one caring a flag.

It was yet another crusader flag, the other, a courier, bearing word from yet another crusader army coming to die in the Sacrilege War. The soldiers and mages had stood in a line, the group’s leader walking up before the courier. What the two said was too faint for the woman to hear over the rambling nonsense of the other prisoners; however whatever happened caused the two to nod and the courier and flag-bearer left back the way they had come.

About twenty minutes later, the crusade arrived. A retinue of fifty knights escorting a collection of warrior-vicars, lords and a crusader-general trotted down the road on horseback, bringing forth a constant line of marching spear sergeants, crossbowmen and more knights both mounted and on foot. The Sacrosanct banners and flags were not waving in the stagnate air, but there were so many of them it still turned to column into looking part fabric. 

The wagon was to follow the crusade further east to Grimgaunt Citadel, this miserable lands functioning capital. The women knew she would be executed there; this thought alone increased the throbbing noises, the whispers growing in intensity. She called on her magic, but the whispers ate at it, they sapped her power.

“Onward, soldiers of the ordered god! Onward to salvation!” the shouts of a warrior-vicar echoed down the road, inspiring a wild cheer from the column of men in response. The servants of the Ordered God, like all other mortals bound by blind faith and zeal marched eagerly to certain doom, unaware and willingly ignorant of the truth of this war. 

“I am lost” the women mumbled blankly to herself.

It could not be won. 
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[hider=Practical Information]
-Introducing the Ironmarch (Part 1)
-A sacrosanct (NPC-West-Navy Blue) crusade of 15,000 men are marching eastward into Ironmarch
-An execution of Darkness-afflicted individuals will soon begin
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