Age of Conan

There was sand as far as the eye could reach and behind all that sand there was nothing else but more sand. There were no lone oasis, no palm tree, not even a single caravan of camels… nothing but burning sun and bright white sand. Legends said that region had been forgotten by the livings centuries ago and the legends where true for there was no living to be seen in this remote land. The legend also mentioned strange things moving in the night… Undeads wandering the cold night to prey whoever would be foolish enough to come here.

There were tombs buried under the sea of sands… Hundreds of them and they could only be seen when sand storm happened in the middle of the night. Once a century the sand storm was powerful enough to dig up the huge mausoleum where Sakh Nathet the deadliest queen, had been walled up alive millenniums ago. The legends said she had been a wonderfully beautiful woman, that men were driven insane simply by looking at her and women would tear their men’s eyes out. It is said that in her brief time as a queen, Sakh Nathet had bled her kingdom of most the living. By a dark night, the last livings walled the doors and windows of her great palace and left the queen with the spirit of her dead subject. Sakh Nathet had been sitting on her engraved throne of stone for millennia.

Before the doorstep of her throne room, appeared a man. He was badly wounded and blood everywhere behind him. One of his hands was holding a shiny and sharp scimitar and the second one was holding a baby against his muscular chest. “The livings are not allowed in this place. How dare you?” whispered a dark and gloomy voice.

In a final spurt of effort, the man looked up and begged. “You may kill if you’d like to, I will soon die anyway… Just let my daughter live!” Already aware, life was leaving his broken body, the man didn’t even ponder the sight of the mummy standing before him and wearing the array of a high priest.

There was a strange sound like a papyrus being torn and the queen rose her hand for the first time in centuries. Most of her skin adhering on her throne was torn, letting rotten flesh fall from her bones. “Bring them before me, priest!” There was a loud and oppressive echo as if thousands of dead slaves were repeating the words. The mummy stepped aside and let the man slowly walk at the feet of the queen. He bowed slowly bleeding a bit more. “How did you sneak past my guards and arrive in my palace, livings!”

“Our caravan had been attacked by raiders two nights ago. I managed to flee with my baby daughter and then there was that sandstorm last night.” The man stopped his speech to puke more blood, his strength was leaving him and he felt on his knees. “I am dying, your Highness! There is no more hope for me and you couldn’t spare me if you wanted to.”

“I see that, dieing one. Your death will be painless yet you will share the curse and fate of those who lived her. Your dead body will rise again and pledge me servitude for an endless time.”

“Your highness, I care little for what will happen of my body once it will be dead. I’d gladly exchange the few hours of life I have left for anything if it can spare my daughter. She is a jewel of Set, a shining diamond in the darkness of my death. Save her, your highness! It is the only wish of the only living you may have seen in your long and endless sitting on your throne.”

“Yes… Long and endless has been my waiting in my own palace and you have been the only one daring to trespass in here since I’ve been walled up alive. I shall reward your courage and spare your daughter. You may die in peace and rise again!”

Sakh Nathet kept her promise and let the baby live and grow in the necropolis of Darok Natheb. She took her under her tutelage and Roshna, as she was named, became a talented necromancer, just as her Liche Queen adopted-mother.