Story 1051: The Forgotten Militia

They march still, beneath the black loam of Noosehill Valley.

Once soldiers—now shadows of loyalty long since severed—The Forgotten Militia answer only to the last order ever spoken by their warlock commander:

"Never rest. Never rot. Serve beyond death."

They were summoned in 1812 to fight a war that was never recorded in history books, one waged not against countries, but against entities. The enemy was time, death, and the writhing gods beneath the soil.

When the war ended, no treaty was signed. No peace declared.

Just a burial.

A mass grave. A silencing spell. A curse never broken.

In the present day, the scavenger duo of Jenna and Boone stumbled upon the entrance during a thunderstorm—an ancient mausoleum of red stone hidden beneath wild briars, its door sealed with hex-etched chains.

Boone, greedy and reckless, pried the chains off with bolt cutters.

The mausoleum hissed.