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[color=BC8F8F][b]The Lands of Aurochylys[/b][/color]
In the Southwestern Heel of the Western Realm

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The lands of Aurochylys, before, had been barren and desolate. No life could flourish in the place, for it was a great bowl of ashes and dust, arid and without refuge nor break in the Earth.

But now in the center of those flats, where before they had been nothing save the scant, crumbling ruins of a remnant civilization long since past, there now arose a renascent city. The structures were all of recent make, simple in construction and being shaped from bricks of dried and fired clay excavated from the surrounding waste. Scaffolds of wooden planks and canvas rose and surrounded each dwelling, evidence of ongoing craftswork and labor, with the innermost structures rising to three heights and the outermost clearly intended to follow. 

Though the city was filled with stockpiles and workyards, all orderly and tidied and brimming with tools and materials of trade, the city evidenced no granaries, nor wells, nor fields of crop, nor bakeries or butchers or even distillers. The city was one of and for the dead - nobody could have dwelt there for long without sustenance, of which there was clearly and evidently none. Yet somehow, the city still found itself populated with many peoples who did toil in the harsh light of the day, building ever on, heightening and lengthening the bounds of the growing settlement, seeming tireless in their efforts. 

Come Nightfall, the many people would retreat to whatever dens and dwellings they had made of themselves, and the horror would begin. For as those who had labored during the day, those who had rested and made leisure would extend their arms and with the bite of a dagger, bleed themselves, pouring out their lifeblood as wine from a skein. Measures of flesh would but cut and flayed from the body - the both body and blood would be consumed by those who had toiled. In the next days, the cycle would repeat - on, and on, seemingly without end or beginning, for those who gave of their flesh partook of no sustenance and imbibed no mixtures, yet every night without fail they would surrender flesh and blood as though they had never done so before. Wives and husbands, daughters and sons, all surrendering, laboring, and partaking in turn in a ghastly and unnatural ritual of unending toil and bloodshed.

The city was a quiet one, even at the height of the day as most labored and worked, with quartermasters and headmen bellowing orders and instructions while heavy materials were shifted, lifted, and installed. The cause was evident, for though the city was alive with work, there was no commerce, no the bustle of trade and the many sounds of social gathering and exchange. All the materials in the settlement came from without, with teams and caravans arriving and departing daily from distant lands, carrying goods, which were distributed amongst groups, almost as handouts, rather than bartered and traded for. From there out, beyond the occasional groups of artisans who would gather to ply their custom with whatever was available - weavers and tailors to make clothes anew, or carpenters and smiths to fabricate new tools - there was little exchange between the peoples of that place. Humorless and devoid of mirth and talk, of wine and laughter, of hearth and hospitality were the dens that rose from the Earth in the barren lands.

Spread throughout the growing settlement city at regular intervals were tall pillars - topped with clay statues of a serene stylite, gazing onwards with a single raised hand, holding up an admonishing finger. Surrounding each pillar at their bases, without fail, would be a ring of desiccated corpses. Chained to its foundation and left there in the harsh and arid climate, those who had been left there were attended by small children, who would carry with them baskets of salt, and anoint the corpses as necessary every day. Though their skins were cracked and leathery beyond measure, the bodies there remained, eerily preserved, some still seeming as though they might be revived if attended to immediately. 

Occasionally, during the day, a laborer would throw down their tools or drop their burden - and refuse to resume. To beg for respite, or to throw curses at all around them. Some of these, when consoled, would return to their homes to resume work the following 'morn.

Those who did not - those who refused to continue such joyless and hollow labor - were dragged, screaming, to be chained to one of the pillars, where they would struggle and shout in futility, where they would strain against their metal shackles for days on end, snarling and spitting at the children as they came every day and threw handfuls of salt at those who were bound - and then with time, as the sun rose and set again and again, their struggles would slow and cease, and soon after they would be but another desiccated and preserved corpse chained at the base of a stylite's pillar.

In the shadow of Evil did the city grow, mirthlessly and without cheer, all within and all who arrived at the place toiling thanklessly and with only the barest and most inhumane of sustenance to preserve them, and with little comfort save the embrace of their loved ones and family come the eve. 

And yet, like a seething tumor, the city did grow, and grow. Soon, it would begin to approximate an actual civilized place, and as the weeks passed, facsimiles of more ordinary structures did begin to appear. Granaries holding naught but dust, fields that were left fallow, vintners that fermented only blood, butchers who dealt only with rancid flesh. Market squares were planned, arranged, and slowly erected - though for the moment, they remained empty. Though what dread and hollow services and exchanges would be established therein, soon, would offend the sensibilities of all civilized people.

And every day, as the City in the Shadow of Evil did grow, more and more people did arrive there, having trekked there across the thankless and dusty barrens - and those who arrived, rarely did they leave again.

There was another striking, eerie quality of the place as well, which although readily overlooked at first would have struck most people after several weeks. There were no cemeteries nor places of burial in all the settlement. No asheries nor crematoriums, nor medicae or herbalists nor healers. None of the people grew ill. None of the people fell and failed to rise again, save those who broke covenant with the master of that place and were condemned to become pillarbound.

The City of Aurochylys was a City of the Damned, populated only by the living dead, and governed through fear of stillness. A pall of menace hung over the whole of the place and all of its people, along with the single stark and certain promise: The city would grow, for the glory of Aurochylys, as certain as the day did dawn, and soon, all of the world would likewise be blessed with his boon, and work his sacred labors for all time - and the Nightmare would Never End.

But far afield, without the dustbowl the city sat in, in greener pastures and more joyful locales, there was nobody who knew of that dread and darkened city. None heard of the terrible fate which the Master of that place intended to inflict upon them. They only heard and saw what his many agents and servants said and did, and wherever they went, they cured injury and malady, bestowed life everlasting, and spoke of a distant paradise where their venerable Master, Aurochylys, did gather the worth to work in glory and raise the wonders the likes of which had never been seen before. 

And so the cycle began to turn - as soon, it would turn without end.