The Last Testament of Brancazio lo Amocacci
Being the Account of Danger and Damnation in the Lands of the Dead

Before I die, I must recount my travels in the land of death and sand. Like my eyesight, my memory fails, and for that I am grateful, for many are the sights that no mortal should witness or recall. However, my soul remains troubled for I beheld things that I have never forgotten, images and experiences that chill to the bone, that destroy the illusion that death is peaceful repose eternal.

I committed many crimes in my day, but they pale in comparison to those I witnessed later. My days as a thief, a pirate, and a slaver are but child's play in contrast to the evils I saw inflicted upon the world by those unseeing eyes in the Lands of the Dead. If you hear of my last account and find yourself drawn to those lands, you are a fool and a scoundrel and may the gods have mercy on your soul. For those troubled by my account, these tales should not be seen as the delusions of an old mind or the ranting of a madman, but a warning about the shadow that waits in the afterlife. And here, at the end of my days, it is the thought of my impending death which fills me with greater fear than anything else I have suffered, for now I know how fitful is the sleep of the dead.

It was the taste of blood and the gold for pound of slave flesh that drew me to the south, and it was my greed and stupidity that led me to the Lands of the Dead. I will curse those lands and my own ignorance and stupidity until my last dying breath.
It was in the opium dens, heavy with the air of incense and lethargy that I met Ibrahim: swords master, scholar, and madman. Strange that it should have been a duel over a whore and a few copper pieces that brought us together. It was over the pearls of opium that he first whispered to me dreadful and ancient legends that seduced me into embarking upon his insane venture. His tales were of cities that sleep by day and awaken by night, where feet thousands of years old traveled the same streets they had always tread, of wars that had been waged for centuries, eyes that never closed, minds that never rested, and of terrible secrets buried deep within the earth that offered untold power, unimaginable wealth, and eternal life.

It was these prizes that drew our strange company towards damnation. Never will Araby see the likes of us, for Ibrahim had assembled the oddest of companions. Massoud the outlaw eunuch, who had carved his masters heart out with his hands and eaten them before the Caliph's harem and his successor, a man with all the strength of a mountain. The Serpent, the Vizier's exiled Wizard who could speak with snakes, kill a man with a glance, and was reputed to traffic with demons and the undead. Fritz Karlka the Empire's most wanted thief and cutthroat, a man whose ruthlessness was only surpassed by his greed. Alkar the nomad warlord who had despoiled hundreds of caravans and was reputed to roast alive those he captured. It was this foul bunch of men who blindly stumbled into the tombs of the undead.

Bel-Aliad

It was here at this sacked city that my schooling in the history of the undead began. This city was once an oasis and important trading point with the nomads to the south and for goods from the Southland when the hordes of the undead, led by a Dark Lord named Arkhan sacked the city, beginning what was later known in Araby as the Lands of the Dead.
It was reputed that the Arkhan served the Lord of the Dead, and was awakened with a vengeance that no amount of bloodshed or cruelty could slake. The atrocities committed when the dead took the living by surprise were still apparent to us centuries later. What the dead did not destroy, the scavengers, the sandstorms and thieves had. There is nothing of value here except skeletons, the buildings are empty and picked clean, and the Serpent warned us not to rest within the boundaries of the city, for he could not assure us that the dead would not find our presence an affront. We spent the night outside the walls, too fearful to partake of the malodorous water gurgling from the tainted oasis.
It was here that we left behind Alkar's companions who refused to ride further and we turned northward towards the coast with Zandri our next destination.

Zandri

The sight of the ocean was a relief for me, fatigued at the sight of the endless dunes. That pleasure was short lived for we soon arrived on a bluff overlooking the city of Zandri. It was here that I heard Ibrahim first use the term "necropolis", or city of the dead. I had heard tales of the death hulks that terrorized the sea lanes, of ships and crew long sent to the bottom that rise to the surface with the sole intent of bringing further souls to a watery grave and it is from this city that the death Hulks set sail.

Like beached leviathans, those hulks lay rotting in the sun upon the coastline of the city, some little more than wooden skeletons, others half submerged in states of terrible disrepair. Of their crews and captains we saw nothing, and it is difficult to imagine those wrecks ever taking to sea again.

The city was a malignant shadow of what it must have been. The buildings were neglected, the streets empty, and the once bustling bazaars long silent. What was chilling was the old dilapidated docks, whose rotting wood was replaced by bones and dried sinew. Those responsible for the grisly repairs were not visible, but one's eyes were drawn to the dark and foreboding light towers and watch towers that dotted the skyline. Foul birds roosted upon them and Ibrahim took great care that we went unnoticed by the beasts.
Ibrahim was adamant that we never enter the city near dark, so we camped outside the city. To our horror, the light towers lit up with eerie green lights that turned one's stomach and caused great pain behind to our eyes. All night, the creaking of waterlogged wood was heard and the sea itself seemed to groan with pain.

After a night of troubled sleep, we set off at dawn to the city. It was here that Ibrahim began his search. Ancient tomes and scrolls in his possession had come from this city, smuggled out in night from the ports before the city was ruled by the dead, and he sought out clues here from the city's ancient and famed library.
So the living once again walked those streets. As it was in the other cities that we desecrated with our touch, nothing moved, there was naught but the eerie whispering of the wind or the voices from parched throats deep within the shadows. The fear of such places never left us, we never became accustomed to it, but on that horrific morning it seemed all the more fierce on account of our inexperience.

I'll spare you the details for the sights of that morning and those that followed are mine alone to bear. The city library was discovered sacked and a fruitless morning was spent there, although our party found some loot to keep spirits high despite the atmosphere. A map here of the ancient lands of Nehekhara provided Ibrahim with enough information to proceed.
We turned our attention the next day to the pyramids outside the city in which ancient priests were entombed. The Serpent warned us from a number of the pyramids, and Fritz proved his worth avoiding the most deadly and cunning of traps. Were it not for the skill of arms of Ibrahim, Massoud and I, I fear our bodies would have moldered there when the dead awakened. Yet the dead were vanquished and fabulous wealth was uncovered. One might think that this would content men such as us, but it merely whetted our ravenous appetites.